Dorotea
A feminine name of Greek origin meaning "gift of God".
Name Census estimates that about 37 living Americans carry the first name Dorotea. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Dorotea today is around 58 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Dorotea births was 1922 (11 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Dorotea. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Dorotea with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Dorotea. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
37
~ 1 in 9,263,631 Americans
Peak year
1922
11 babies that year
Average age
58
years old
2016 SSA rank
#16,951
Tracked since 1896
Census
Dorotea in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 909 people with the first name Dorotea, which placed it at #13,330 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#13,330
National first-name rank
People counted
909
909 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
63.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Dorotea
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dorotea is Hispanic at 63.6%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (17.6%) and White (16.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Dorotea described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Dorotea at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino63.6% · 578
- Asian and Pacific Islander17.6% · 160
- White16.5% · 150
- Black or African American1.3% · 12
- Two or more races0.7% · 6
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 3
Popularity
Dorotea: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Dorotea from the 1890s through to the 2010s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 36 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Dorotea by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Dorotea during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Doroteas live
Origin
Meaning and history of Dorotea
Dorotea is a feminine given name with Greek origins, derived from the word "doron" meaning "gift" and "theos" meaning "god." It is the feminine form of the male name Dorotheus, which translates to "God's gift." The name can be traced back to ancient Greece and was later adopted by the Romans.
In the late 3rd century AD, there was a virgin martyr named Dorothea who was beheaded by the Roman Emperor Diocletian for her Christian faith. Her story and martyrdom helped popularize the name among early Christians. The Catholic Church celebrates her feast day on February 6th.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Dorotea can be found in the 12th century with Dorotea de Hacket, an English noblewoman born around 1155. In the 13th century, Saint Dorotea of Montau (1347-1394), a Polish mystic and religious leader, further spread the name's popularity.
During the Renaissance, the Italian form Dorotea gained prominence. Dorotea Bocchi (1360-1436) was an Italian Renaissance scholar and one of the first female professors of medicine and philosophy. Another notable figure was Dorotea Bucca (1360-1492), an Italian poet and humanist.
In the 16th century, Dorotea Dias (1544-1613), a Portuguese painter and one of the first female artists of the Renaissance era, gained recognition for her religious paintings.
As the name spread across Europe, variations emerged, such as the French Dorothée, the Spanish Dorotea, and the German Dorothea. In the 19th century, the English novelist and playwright Dorotea Deering (1806-1888) helped popularize the name in Britain.
Dorotea has remained a popular name throughout history, with notable figures like Dorotea Tanning (1910-2012), an American painter, sculptor, and writer associated with the Surrealist movement, and Dorotea Puente (1916-2003), a notorious Colombian serial killer known as the "Monster of Bucharest."
People
Dorotea + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Dorotea as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Dorotea: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Dorotea?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 37 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Dorotea going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 9,263,631 US residents.
Is Dorotea a common name?
We classify Dorotea as "Very Rare". It ranks above 49.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 130 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Dorotea most popular?
The single biggest year for Dorotea was 1922, when 11 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Dorotea is about 58 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Dorotea in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 909 people with the name Dorotea, or 0.30 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #13,330 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Dorotea in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Dorotea?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Dorotea appears almost entirely female. Of the 906 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Dorotea?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Dorotea is Hispanic at 63.6%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (17.6%) and White (16.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Dorotea most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Dorotea in the 2020 Census, accounting for 63.6% (578 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Dorotea in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Dorotea a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Dorotea in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Dorotea still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Dorotea in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Dorotea can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have the name Dorotea?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.