Portia
A Latin name that goes back to the word for pig. In Poland it barely exists: just 15 women carry it, and most Poles will never meet one.
Portia Pronunciation
Portia is pronounced PORT-yah (/ˈpɔrtja/).
What Portia means
Where Portia comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Portia comes from the Roman family name Porcius. That clan took its name from the Latin word porcus, meaning pig. The short English meaning stays blunt: pig. The name that reaches a Polish register today keeps that farmyard root in its Latin bones.
The most famous bearer changed how the name is heard. Portia, the clever heiress in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, argues a court case in disguise and wins. Before her there was a real Porcia, daughter of Cato and wife of Brutus, remembered by Roman writers for her resolve. English speakers meet the name through the play first.
A girl on a class register in Kraków named Portia sits with a word that once meant pig and a heroine who out-argued a courtroom. There are no Polish diminutives for it, no home-grown variants. The name stands as it is. Its origin is the gens Porcia, and its plain meaning stays porcus, pig.
How many people are named Portia
1 in 1502922 women in Poland is named Portia. 15 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #12239 among female names.