Dora
- Pronunciation
- [Dor-ah]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Gift
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Dora
Dora is a short form of names ending in -dora, most prominently Theodora and Isadora, whose shared Greek element doron means gift. As a standalone name, Dora carries the easy warmth of a diminutive that has outgrown its role as an abbreviation and become fully self-sufficient — a two-syllable name with a gentle, open sound that appealed strongly to the Victorian and Edwardian taste for classical brevity dressed in everyday friendliness.
Dora Gabe (born 1886) was a Bulgarian poet, writer, and translator whose seven-decade literary career produced one of the foundational documents of twentieth-century Bulgarian poetry — particularly her 1908 first poetry collection, which established her early reputation.
In US Social Security records, Dora appears in the top-1000 from 1880 and reached its peak of #46 in 1881, reflecting its strong identification with the Victorian era. It remained on the chart until 1909, when it registered 829 births at #95, having accumulated nearly 24,000 top-1000 births. Its relatively early exit from American charts speaks to the rapid pace of naming fashion in the early twentieth century, when new models quickly displaced the names of the previous generation. Recorded variants include Dodi, Dody, Dorie, and Dory.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Dora
US Popularity History (1880–1909)
Annual US births named Dora by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1892 with 960 girls named Dora (girl rank #61 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1909, ranked #95 for girls (829 US births). That's 34 places below its 1892 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dory | Blonde | Female | French |
Famous People Named Dora
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Dora.
- Dora Gabe — Poet (1886)
Looking for names like Dora?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Dora to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Dora against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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