Dora (given name)

Dora (Greek: Δώρα) is a female name of Greek origin, being a shortened form or derived from Dorothea (Dorothy) and Theodora (masculine Theodore),[1][2] meaning "gift" or in its full form "god's gift", from δῶρον, doron, "gift"[3] + θεός, theos, "god".[4] The name Dora can also be a short form of Isadora (Isidora). Doreen, Dorian, and Dorinda are other examples of names from the same root form.[1]

The earliest form of the word doron is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀈𐀨, dora, meaning "gifts", written in the Linear B syllabic script, but it is not an anthroponym, it is only the plural (δῶρα) of said word;[5] on the other hand, the names Theodora and Amphidora are attested in Linear B as 𐀳𐀃𐀈𐀨, te-o-do-ra, and 𐀀𐀠𐀈𐀨, a-pi-do-ra, respectively. The masculine counterpart of the latter, i.e. Amphidoros, is also found: 𐀀𐀠𐀈𐀫, a-pi-do-ro.[6]

In Albanian, dora means "hand". In Russian, Dora can be a diminutive of the male first name Agafodor.[7]

People

• Dora Altmann (1881–1971), German actress
• Dora Annie Dickens (1850–1851), infant daughter of English novelist Charles Dickens
• Dora Anastasiou (born 1988), Cypriot beauty queen
• Dora Bakoyannis (born 1954), Greek politician
• Dora Barrancos (born 1940), Argentine academic and politician
• Dora Beedham née Spong (1879–1969), British nurse and suffragette
• Dora Brilliant (1880–1907), Ukrainian socialist revolutionary
• Dora Bryan (1923–2014), British actress
• Dora Carrington (1893–1932), British painter
• Dora Erway (1889–1976), American artist and home economist
• Dora Gabe (1886–1983), Bulgarian Jewish poet
• Dora Greenwell (1821–1882), English poet
• Dora Hand (c. 1844–1878), American dance hall singer in Dodge City, Kansas
• Dora d'Istria (1828–1888), Romanian-Albanian writer
• Dora Herbert Jones (1890–1974), Welsh administrator and singer
• Dora Justiniano de la Rocha (1925–2016), Bolivian linguist, educator and poet
• Dora Kalaus (born 1996), Croatian handball player
• Dora Khayatt (1912–1986), Egyptian-born American painter
• Dora Krsnik (born 1992), Croatian handball player
• Dora Kyriakou (born 1967), Cypriot sprinter
• Dora Lewis (1862–1928), American suffragist
• Dora Maar (1907–1997), French model and photographer
• Dora Richards Miller, (1842–1914), Danish West Indies-born American author and educator
• Dora Mavor Moore (1888–1979), Canadian actress
• Dora Montefiore (1851–1933), English-Australian suffragist, socialist
• Dora Musielak, Mexican-American aerospace engineer, historian of mathematics, and book author
• Dora Moono Nyambe (1992–2024), Zambian humanitarian and TikToker
• Dora Pavel (born 1946), Romanian novelist
• Dora Pejačević (1885–1923), Croatian composer
• Dora Puelma (1898–1972), Chilean artist
• Dora Knowlton Ranous (1859–1916), American actress, author
• Dora Ratjen, birth name of Heinrich Ratjen (1918–2008), German high jumper who competed as a woman in the 1936 Olympics, but was later found to be male and/or intersex
• Dora Richter (1892–1966), German transgender woman and the first known person to undergo complete male-to-female gender-affirming surgery
• Dora Rosetti (1908–1989), Greek doctor and writer
• Dora Russell (1894–1986), British author
• Dora Isella Russell (1925–1990) Uruguayan poet, journalist
• Dora Adele Shoemaker (1873–1962), American educator, writer
• Dora Stratou (1903–1988), Greek dancer and folklorist
• Dora Varella (born 2001), Brazilian skateboarder
• Dora V. Wheelock (1847–1923), American activist and writer

Fictional characters

• Dora the Explorer (character), protagonist of the Dora the Explorer franchise
• Dora the Female Explorer, eponymous subject of a song on the 1971 album Stackridge
• Dora Bianchi, in the webcomic Questionable Content
• Dora Orefice, in the Life Is Beautiful movie
• Dora Winifred "D.W." Read, in the Arthur book and television series
• Dora Spenlow, in the Dickens novel David Copperfield

See also

• Dora (disambiguation)
• Doreen (given name)
• Doralice, a given name

References

Notes

1. Campbell, Mike (16 November 2019). "Meaning, origin and history of the name Doreen". Behind the Name. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
2. Campbell, Mike (25 April 2021). "Meaning, origin and history of the name Dora". Behind the Name. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
3. δῶρον. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
4. θεός in Liddell and Scott.
5. "The Linear B word do-ra". Palaeolexicon. Word study tool of ancient languages. Raymoure, K.A. "do-ra-qe". Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B. Deaditerranean.
6. "te-o-do-ra-qe". Raymoure, K.A. "a-pi-do-ra". Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B. Deaditerranean.
7. Superanskaya, p. 24

Sources

• А. В. Суперанская (A. V. Superanskaya). "Современный словарь личных имён: Сравнение. Происхождение. Написание" (Modern Dictionary of First Names: Comparison. Origins. Spelling). Айрис-пресс. Москва, 2005. ISBN 5-8112-1399-9