Meaning & Origin
A female given name from Ancient Greek, a Latinate variant of Dorothy.
Dorothea is a girl's and boy's baby name of Greek origin, from the Greek Dōrothea, meaning 'gift of God,' reversing the elements of Theodora (God + gift). Saint Dorothea of Caesarea was a 4th-century martyr, and the name was borne by many notable women including reformer Dorothea Dix and the character in George Eliot's Middlemarch.
With over 34,000 U.S. births, Dorothea is undergoing a beautiful revival — it has the full grandeur of a Victorian name and the gentle warmth of its divine meaning, sounding both dignified and deeply approachable.