Dolly

English, diminutive of Dorothy
"gift of God"

Dolly Origin and Meaning

The name Dolly is a girl's name of English origin meaning "gift of God".

Hello, Dolly! Okay, we couldn't resist, but be warned: Most people who meet your little Dolly won't be able to either. This nickname-name, rarely heard since whatever decade Dolly Parton was born, is singing a fashionable note again along with sisters Dottie and Dixie; it was chosen for one of their twin girls by Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell.

Dolly has been used on its own since the seventeenth century, so common then that it became a generic term for a favored girl. In the US, Dolly was a Top 300 name around the turn of the last century. The fourth First Lady of the United States spelled her name variously as Dolly and Dolley Madison. And of course Dolly Levi is the name of the central character in the iconic musical bearing her name.

Trivia tidbit: Dolly, the sheep that was the first mammal to be cloned, was named after Dolly Parton.

# 960 in the US

Dolly Rank in US Top 1000

# 523 on Nameberry

Dolly Rank in Nameberry Top 1000

Dolly Popularity

Famous People Named Dolly

  • Dolly Rebecca Parton
    American country music singer
  • Dorothy Clara Louise "Dolly" Haas
    German,American actress, wife of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld
  • Dorothy Theresa "Dolly" Hall
    American film producer
  • Dorothy Ann "Dolly" Collins
    English folk musician
  • Dolly Buster aka Nora Baumberger (born Nora Dvořáková)
    Czech,American actress
  • Dolly Jacobs
    American circus aerialist
  • Dorothy "Dolly" Peel
    English fishwife and smuggler
  • Dorothy "Dolly" Pentreath
    Last native Cornish speaker
  • Dolly Rathebe
    South African singer/actress
  • Dolly Vanderlip
    All,American Girls Professional Baseball League pitcher
  • Dolly Banks
    Baddiel (b. 2001), daughter of actress Morwenna Banks
  • Dolly Rebecca Rose O'Connell (b. 2009)
    daughter of actors Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell
  • The Dolly Sisters
    Jenny and Rosie Dolly, Hungarian,American identical twin dancers and actresses, famous in the 1920s
  • Dolly
    Rose Campbell, English actress

Dolly in Pop Culture

  • Darya "Dolly" Alexandrovna Oblonskaya
    character in Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina"
  • Dolly Gallagher Levi
    main character in Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker" and musical "Hello, Dolly!"
  • Dolly Meriwether
    character in Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind"
  • Dolly Keane
    character in The Family Circus comic strip
  • Dolly Skilbeck
    character on British soap "Emmerdale"
  • Dolly Rawlins
    character in "Widows"
  • Dolly
    doll in Pixar's "Toy Story 3"
  • Dolly
    occasional nickname for Dolores "Lolita" Haze in Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" ("she was Dolly at school")
  • Dolly
    Scottish cloned sheep
  • "Dolly Dagger
    " song by Jimi Hendrix
  • "Little Dolly Daydream
    " English music hall song by Leslie Stuart.
  • Dolly
    a character featured in Billion Surprise Toys videos. The doctor told her to never play in the rain, and she replied, "okay sure I will do like that"