Dorothy
From the Greek for "gift of god", it's the English cousin of Polish Dorota. Fewer than 150 people in Poland carry it, so most here will never meet one.
Dorothy Pronunciation
What Dorothy means
Where Dorothy comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Dorothy comes from the Greek Dorothea, built from dōron, meaning gift, and theos, meaning god. Put together they read as gift of God. The same two pieces appear in Theodora, only in reverse order, which makes the two names siblings of a sort.
In English the name settled early and stayed common for generations. Most people now meet it first in Dorothy Gale, the girl from Kansas in L. Frank Baum's 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. That single character kept the name in wide use long after other Victorian favourites faded.
Poland took the same Greek root and made it Dorota. From Dorota came Dosia, the short form a grandmother or a school friend reaches for. Saint Dorothea of Caesarea gives the name its day: 6 February. Picture a class register in early February, a Dorota near the top, her imieniny falling that same week. The meaning underneath stays fixed. Gift of God.
How many people are named Dorothy
1 in 155475 women in Poland is named Dorothy. 145 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2693 among female names.
Dorothy's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 girls were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Dorothy as a middle name
Dorothy is a first name for 145 women in Poland and a middle name for another 115, a 56/44 split, almost evenly. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 615th, between Danielle (115) and Marion (115).
-
#613 Chiara115
-
#614 Danielle115
-
#615 Dorothy115
-
#616 Marion115
-
#617 Silvia115