Girl · Greek
Dorothea
Say it: dor-uh-THEE-uh
Meaning
From Greek dōron 'gift' and theos 'god': 'gift of god'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Spread through the cult of Saint Dorothea and was a favourite in German and Protestant families; its English short form Dorothy peaked around 1920.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1910s
In the United States
- 34,018 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1911, about 1 in 1,100 girls
- 57 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Dorothy, Dorothée
| Greek | Dorothea |
|---|---|
| German | Dorothea |
| French | Dorothée |
| Italian | Dorotea |
| Spanish | Dorotea |
| Polish | Dorota |
| Russian | Dorofeya |
Famous bearers
- Saint Dorothea of Caesarea, martyr
- Dorothea Dix, American reformer
- Dorothea Lange, American photographer
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
- Calendars of saints and name days
- Parish baptism registers
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.