Dorathy
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Dorathy has been given to 1,928 babies in the U.S. since 1895. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1921, with 81 recorded.
Babies named Dorathy, 1978
1 in 635,000
Dorathy over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Dorathy?
Dorathy had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1978, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1978
- 1 in 635,000
- 5 of 3,173,639 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 306,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1978
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 439,961 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Dorathy sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1978 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 439,961 children born in 1978 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Dorathy. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Dorathys were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Dorathy was born before 1926 — so the typical Dorathy is around 99 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 32.5% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 8.8%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 252
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 32.5% of all recorded uses (626).
Is Dorathy rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1921 (81)
- Years since peak
- 104
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 42.2% average annual change
Spellings of Dorathy
Dorathy is not the most common spelling — Dorothy is, with 95.9% against Dorathy's 0.17%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Dorathy is used
Across 1910–2025, Dorathy was most concentrated in Iowa — about 1 in 50,000 girls, against 1 in 276,949 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Iowa1 in 50,000
- 2Illinois1 in 100,000
- 3New York1 in 100,000
- 4Indiana1 in —
- 5Kentucky1 in —
- 6Michigan1 in —
- 7North Carolina1 in —
- 8New Jersey1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Dorathy has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Dorathy around the world
Where Dorathy ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- South Australia1948–1977#637in 1977
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Dorathy by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Dorathy
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Dorathy
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.