View Message

Dorothea
What do you think of it? We're still sorting through baby girl names. I'm in love with Ada Susanna, discussed in a prior thread. My husband is thinking about it. :)We also like Alice and Iris. My husband has proposed Alice Dorothea and Iris Dorothea. Dorothy is my middle name and my grandmother's name.I can't quite decide if I love it. I might be too close to Dorothy to see it well.What do you think of Dorothea? Is it classic and great? Too much?
Archived Thread - replies disabled
vote up1

Replies

I Like Dorothea & DorothyI love it (them) even more with relation to the nickname Doro - especially for a girl / lady.
vote up1
I love the name Dorothea, such a lovely feeling to it. Iris Dorothea is really nice.
vote up1
While I absolutely do prefer Dorothea over Dorothy, I find that with Dorothea, I have to wait until the last syllable is spoken to decide if I like it, lol. I hope that makes sense. Still, the name is classic, quirky, delightful, and surprising for a little tyke born these days. It's definitely not too much of a name.Between Alice and Iris, I much prefer Alice and think Alice Dorothea is beautiful. I know you also like Ada Susanna which would make an awesome sibset with Alice Dorothea. :-)
vote up1
Dorothea is a classic beauty and works so well as a middle name for Alice or Iris. As a first name, Dorothea nn Thea would be especially lovely. Best of luck to you!
vote up1
Dorothea's great. I think it would be "too much" for me, but the character in Middlemarch just makes it amazing. Ada Susanna's beautiful, but I think Alice Dorothea has a wonderful grit to it.
vote up1
I'm not a huge fan but there are a lot of worse names. I don't think it's "too much" and it is classic. Even though I don't think Dorothea is too much, I prefer the slightly more simple Dorothy. I like Dorrie as a nickname for Dorothea as well as Dorothy.
vote up1
I adore Dorothea and prefer it to Susanna (which I also admire) because it's fresher. Alice Dorothea and Iris Dorothea are both lovely.
vote up1
I was at school with a Dorothea who never went by any nn at all! I like it better than Dorothy - just seems more finished - but as a mn it hardly matters.Either Alice or Iris would go beautifully with Dorothea. Or with Dorothy!Ada Susanna seems to need a tweak: Ada Suzanne would please me more, or Ada Susannah? To break up the -a chain?
vote up1
I love Dorothea. Beautiful meaning, elegant and interesting sound, underused. We had a Dorothea at the preschool I teach at and her name suited her beautifully; her nickname (which she usually went by) was 'Dot'. I loved it.
vote up1
squeeYou know a little Dorothea! That is so great. One of my concerns is that the name is super literary to the point of vanishing. We've toyed with Dorothy as a first and Dorothea only in second place for that reason. How fun that there are some little Dorothea's popping up. Apparently, Dorothy is not my first name, as my mom was trying to avoid Dot. But I rather like Dot!
vote up1
I think it's lovely! I don't think it's too much, especially since it's in the middle name spot. I can't decide- Ada Susanna, Alice Dorothea and Iris Dorothea are all gorgeous. I guess if you're concerned with popularity get rid of Alice, but if not, good luck!
vote up1
popularity issues...Yeah, at this point, I'm pretty sure I'm happy with our top few choices. That also means i might have a crisis in deciding.I'm not sure yet whether to consider Alice's popularity problematic. It's clearly moved up the social security baby name rankings very quickly, and I don't know how to guess if it'll plateau or if it's going to join Emma up on the top of the chart. One good thing, I figure, is that it is too classic to be "trendy". It can only become popular and begin to date again. Our other top names (unless we move Susanna to a first name slot) are clearly highly mobile as well, and are maybe quirkier and so more in danger of somehow being or becoming trendy? I'm not too sure where the lines are. We usually knock off any baby names that don't have a lot of history, just because we love history, but my obscure historical arguments won't save us if the name sounds of-the-moment. Our last pick, August for our son, seems to have moved up quite a bit too. In our immediate area I keep bumping into people who have a new family member with the name. Supposedly, "August is the new Oscar" according to Name Berry at one point - but I still don't know what that means. I figured it to be more like Otto. But I might be the only one who picked it because it is Augustus for Germans. :p
vote up1
Actually, the German form of August is indeed August. I know there's Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but Roald Dahl probably just picked the name because it sounded funny to him (ironically, the book actually never mentions Augustus' nationality).
vote up1
Yes, the fact that August is the German form of the name is why we picked it over Augustus. (We have a lot of German background so we were trying to find names familiar in two places.) Also, we figured it to be less formal or in need of a nickname, compared to the three-syllable Augustus.People mostly do not shorten it... mostly ...
vote up1
It is pretty and would be very nice to hear. Alice and Iris are nice as well.
vote up1
I love Dorothea; less fusty old lady than Dorothy and fresher and more interesting than Theodora. Alice and Iris are gorgeous too
vote up1
It’s very pretty, and I like the family connection.
vote up1