Portia

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Girl · Latin

Portia

Say it: POR-shah

Try it with your surname

Meaning

From the Roman family name Porcius, probably connected with porcus 'pig'.

Likelythe main view, with some doubt.

Its wave through time

Fading since the 1980s

In the United States

05101518801900192019401960198020002020Peak 1988per 100,000 babies of that sex
  • 10,571 babies given this name since 1882
  • At its height in 1989, about 1 in 7,100 girls
  • 21 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
  2. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

EnglishCaribbean

The family of the name

Other spellings: Porsha

LatinPorcia
ItalianPorzia

Famous bearers

  • Portia, heroine of Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice'
  • Portia Simpson-Miller, prime minister of Jamaica

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Well-known works of literature
  • Roman literature and history (Livy, Cicero, Tacitus and others)
  • 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.