How rare is the name Dorthy?

8,404 people in the United States have the first name Dorthy, about 1 in 35,939. It ranks #2,775 of 53,615 first names in the 2020 Census.

first name

DORTHY

#2,775

of 53,615 first names recorded in the 2020 Census

People
8,404
About
1 in 35,939
This common or more
80.8%
Who bears it

Of the 8,404 people named Dorthy, 69% reported their origin as White, 23.3% as Black and 3% as Hispanic or Latino. Virtually all are female (99.6%). These count how people described themselves on the 2020 Census, not where the name comes from.

Dorthy peaked in 1927, when 700 babies got the name.

Births per year, SSA records 1880–2025
18852025
Peak year
1927
Births that year
700
In 2025*
8 ▼99%
Recorded as
almost entirely female

At least 20,417 babies have been given the name since 1885. Years SSA withheld, because fewer than 5 were born, are skipped rather than drawn as zero. * 2025 is the newest year published and it undercounts: a card application is filed some time after a birth.

Dorthy by decade

Among all names given to American babies, its best decade was the 1930s, when it ranked #500. The largest share of babies named Dorthy, 42.5%, were born between 1928 and 1945, the Silent Generation's birth years.

1880s#2,30819
1890s#1,89472
1900s#947347
1910s#6912,125
1920s#5035,768
1930s#5005,231
1940s#7523,351
1950s#1,2311,828
1960s#2,030795
1970s#3,727343
1980s#6,144212
1990s#10,957129
2000s#18,93778
2010s#20,34772
2020s#18,70947
Before 19010.6%
Greatest Generation 1901–2734.1%
Silent Generation 1928–4542.5%
Baby boom 1946–6417.1%
Generation X 1965–803.3%
Millennials 1981–961.3%
Generation Z 1997–120.7%
2013 and later0.5%

Rank counts both sexes together, among every name SSA recorded that decade; the number under it is births. The 2020s run only to 2025. Generation years follow Pew Research Center, which has not named a generation after 2012.

Where Dorthy is most common

Compared with all babies born in each state since 1910, Dorthy has been most common in Arkansas (7.9×), Mississippi (7.7×), and Tennessee (3.9×), and least common in New York (0.09×).

16,752 births recorded by state, 1910–2025. 2× means twice as common as nationally. States with fewer than 30 such births are left blank, and SSA withholds any year with fewer than 5 in a state, so small states read low.

Either side of Dorthy

#2,773 Uriah · 8,415#2,774 Mika · 8,413#2,776 Zuri · 8,403#2,777 Rosendo · 8,397

Spelled almost the same

7 first names in the 2020 Census spelled within a letter or two of Dorthy, most common first.

#166 Dorothy · 304,932#8,981 Dortha · 1,580#11,309 Dorathy · 1,142#21,087 Dorthey · 485#39,013 Dorithy · 195#51,177 Dorthe · 115#52,287 Dorethy · 108

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