Intelligence Corps Corporal Sarah Bryant,26, moved to live in Carlisle as a child but still has many relatives on Merseyside.
She was one of four soldiers killed in a roadside bomb explosion on Tuesday.
The other three soldiers have been named by the MoD as Corporal Sean Robert Reeve, Lance Corporal Richard Larkin and Paul Stout.
Cpl Bryant's husband Cpl Carl Bryant said: "Although I am devastated beyond words at the death of my beautiful wife Sarah, I am so incredibly proud of her.
"She was an awesome soldier who died doing the job that she loved. My wife knew the risks, she was there because she wanted to be, and she wouldn't have had it any other way."
Mrs Bryant spoke the local Pashtu language, and her work involved monitoring Taliban telephone and walkie-talkie communications.
Speaking from his home in Cotehill, near Carlisle, her father Des Feely said: "There are so many people, both in the military and locally where she grew up, that are not only going to be touched by this but also devastated at the loss of such a beautiful girl.
"Nothing much seems to have changed since the days of Churchill's famous speech. Never have so many owed so much to so few.
"We truly have lost the 'Angel of the North'. But I know that at least Sarah died doing the job she loved and for a cause she believed in."
Mrs Bryant was a talented horse rider and joined the Army after passing her A-levels in Sociology, General Studies, and Environmental Science.
She was on a secret counter-terrorism mission in Helmand province when she was killed along with three reserve members of the Special Air Service when their armoured Land Rovers were hit by a roadside bomb.
It was the greatest single loss of life for the Territorial Army since the Second World War and the biggest single loss of life for British troops since September 2006, when 14 personnel were killed in an RAF Nimrod crash near Kandahar. It brings to nine the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan in as many days.
The reservists, from the 23rd SAS Regiment, were providing support for an operation by the Afghan National Police east of Lashkar Gah.
Mrs Bryant married a fellow intelligence officer two years ago. Her work in Afghanistan involved monitoring Taleban telephone and walkie-talkie communications. She spoke the local Pashtu language and was recently promoted to the rank of sergeant in the Intelligence Corps. She had previously completed two six-month tours to Iraq.
Major Bruce Spencer, a British military spokesman said: "Military campaigns have moved on from the days when we confronted the enemy in the trenches across a clear front line".
"We now have an asymmetric battlefield. The front line could be right outside the camp gates or 50 miles away. We select people on the basis of what they can do, not on the basis of their gender.
"Women are part of the full panoply of the Armed Forces. The risks that they take are the same as anyone else, and they understand the risks."
Gordon Brown expressed his “deepest condolences” to the families of the four soldiers.
Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, rejected suggestions that British troops in Afghanistan could start "losing heart" after the recent surge in casualties.
