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Doretha

Girls' name

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Doretha has been given to 8,562 babies in the U.S. since 1896. 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 1956, with 198 recorded.

Babies named Doretha, 1998

1 in 735,000

Doretha over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015020018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Doretha: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Doretha means

Doretha is a given name.

The naming story behind Doretha

Wikidata records Doretha as a female given name. The entity identifier is Q131859472, and the classification was checked on 2026-10-20. The spelling matches a source label or alias exactly, without removing accents or linking it to a name merely because the letters look similar.

A database classification is different from an etymological explanation, so those questions remain open in the short meaning.

A modern root explanation needs an additional naming or linguistic reference.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 8,562 girls were recorded with the name Doretha between 1896 and 1998. Its highest annual count was 198 in 1956; its best national rank was #502 in 1932.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Doretha?

Doretha had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1998, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1998
1 in 735,000
5 of 3,677,189 births
Among girls only
1 in 353,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1998
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
509,768 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Doretha sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1998 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 509,768 children born in 1998 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Doretha. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Dorethas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Doretha was born before 1945 — so the typical Doretha is around 80 today.

Median birth year
1945
About 80 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
21.4% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
4.9%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
3,601
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 21.4% of all recorded uses (1,833).

Is Doretha 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 1956 (198)
Years since peak
69
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
23.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#502
1932

Spellings of Doretha

Doretha is not the most common spelling — Dorothy is, with 79.1% against Doretha's 0.61%.

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 Doretha is used

Across 1910–2025, Doretha was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 3,125 girls, against 1 in 19,632 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in —).

032 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Louisiana1 in 3,125
  2. 2Mississippi1 in 3,226
  3. 3South Carolina1 in 3,846
  4. 4North Carolina1 in 4,762
  5. 5Georgia1 in 6,667
  6. 6District of Columbia1 in 7,143
  7. 7Virginia1 in 9,091
  8. 8Florida1 in 10,000

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. Doretha has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Doretha in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Doretha. Linked forms have their own page here.

DorothaDoretheaDoreta

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Doretha by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#502
1932
Peak year
1956
198 that year
First recorded
1896
Last recorded
1998
All-time count
8,562
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Doretha

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

DorothaDorthaDoreathaDorcasDortheaDorianDorthyDorindaDorathaTabathaDoreneAgathaTalithaDorotheaDorrisDoreenDorettaDorithaDorathyDoriDorinaDortheyDorineTabitha

Names with a curve like Doretha

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Doretha, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

LavernMadonnaCelestineCarylMickeyGildaVernellAnnettaIleneDarlineJoeLonnie

Sibling names for Doretha

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Doretha

Top names of 1956, Doretha's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1932Girls' names starting with D