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Dotty

#12,245 in 2025Girls' name

Diminutive of Dorothy

Dotty has been given to 1,693 babies in the U.S. since 1909. In 2025 it ranked #12,245 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1945, with 53 recorded.

Babies named Dotty, 2025

1 in 474,000

Dotty over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Dotty: meaning, origin, and history

Diminutive of Dorothy

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Dotty means

Dotty is a diminutive of Dorothy.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Dotty is used in English.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈdɑt.i/ and /ˈdɒt.i/ for Dotty.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Dorothy.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,693 girls were recorded with the name Dotty between 1909 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 53 in 1945; its best national rank was #988 in 1939.

Over 10 years its rank rose, from #17,182 in 2015 to #12,245 in 2025.

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.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Dotty?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 474,000
7 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 230,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#12,245
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
328,272 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Dotty 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 2025 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 328,272 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Dotty. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Dottys were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Dotty was born before 1944 — so the typical Dotty is around 81 today.

Median birth year
1944
About 81 years old
Biggest decade
1940s
26.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
2.4%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
624
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1940s — 26.8% of all recorded uses (453).

Is Dotty 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
+268
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
+4,937
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.40×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
13.2%
Peak was 1945 (53)
Years since peak
80
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
25.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#988
1939

Spellings of Dotty

Dotty is not the most common spelling — Betty is, with 87.1% against Dotty's 0.15%.

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 Dotty is used

Across 1910–2025, Dotty was most concentrated in West Virginia — about 1 in 33,333 girls, against 1 in 222,527 across all states with data. It was least common in Tennessee (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1West Virginia1 in 33,333
  2. 2Kentucky1 in 50,000
  3. 3Illinois1 in —
  4. 4Missouri1 in —
  5. 5New York1 in —
  6. 6Ohio1 in —
  7. 7Pennsylvania1 in —
  8. 8Tennessee1 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. Dotty has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Dotty around the world

Where Dotty 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.

  • England & Wales
    2009–2025
    #1,197
    in 2025

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0.

Dotty by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#12,245
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
New entry
Best rank ever
#988
1939
Peak year
1945
53 that year
First recorded
1909
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
1,693
Count in 2025
7

Names similar to Dotty

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

YittyDotKattyGittyMattyLettyDottieEttyJettyDottiHettyScottyKittyDotsieDotsyPattyNettyKettyDottArriettyDottyeHattyDothaPretty

Sibling names for Dotty

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 Dotty

Top names of 1945, Dotty's peak yearThe 1940s in fullOther names that peaked in 1939Girls' names starting with DWhimsical Girl Names