Name Awesome

Dorotha

Girls' name

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Dorotha has been given to 4,788 babies in the U.S. since 1885. 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 197 recorded.

Babies named Dorotha, 1970

1 in 721,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Dorotha: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Dorotha means

Dorotha is a given name.

The naming story behind Dorotha

Wikidata records Dorotha as a female given name. The entity identifier is Q131859509, 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, 4,788 girls were recorded with the name Dorotha between 1885 and 1970. Its highest annual count was 197 in 1921; its best national rank was #472 in 1916.

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 Dorotha?

Dorotha had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1970, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1970
1 in 721,000
5 of 3,606,302 births
Among girls only
1 in 350,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1970
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
499,941 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Dorotha 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 1970 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 499,941 children born in 1970 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Dorotha. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Dorothas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Dorotha was born before 1924 — so the typical Dorotha is around 101 today.

Median birth year
1924
About 101 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
36.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
7.5%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
255
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 36.9% of all recorded uses (1,767).

Is Dorotha 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 (197)
Years since peak
104
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
25.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#472
1916

Spellings of Dorotha

Dorotha is not the most common spelling — Dorothy is, with 92.4% against Dorotha's 0.40%.

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 Dorotha is used

Across 1910–2025, Dorotha was most concentrated in Oklahoma — about 1 in 5,263 girls, against 1 in 30,315 across all states with data. It was least common in Oregon (1 in —).

019 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Oklahoma1 in 5,263
  2. 2West Virginia1 in 6,667
  3. 3Arkansas1 in 8,333
  4. 4Indiana1 in 12,500
  5. 5Kentucky1 in 12,500
  6. 6Tennessee1 in 16,667
  7. 7Kansas1 in 20,000
  8. 8Missouri1 in 20,000

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

Dorotha in other languages

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

DorethaDorothea

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

Dorotha 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
#472
1916
Peak year
1921
197 that year
First recorded
1885
Last recorded
1970
All-time count
4,788
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Dorotha

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

DorethaDorthaDoreathaDortheaDorianDorcasDorindaDorathaTalithaDorettaDorithaDorathyDorthyDoriDorinaDortheyDorrisDoreneDorineSamathaTabathaAgathaTabethaDorothea

Names with a curve like Dorotha

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

ElveraJohnieOdellMozelleMyrticeOletaEldoraBerneiceEthelynElnaFloreneMozell

Sibling names for Dorotha

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 Dorotha

Top names of 1921, Dorotha's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1916Girls' names starting with D