Dorothy is a spunky Kansas farm girl, complete with ruby slippers and a little dog, too.  Flip the elements of her name, and she’s a Byzantine monarch – and a saint.

Thanks to Rachel for suggesting Theodosia as Name of the Day.

If you’re in your 30s, your first exposure to Theodosia might have 1988′s For Keeps.  Molly Ringwald played Darcy, a high school senior who finds herself with child and spends nine months contemplating her future and very little time considering baby names.

Darcy slumps into a deep depression in the maternity award and awakens to discover that her boyfriend Stan plucked the name Theodosia off his family tree:

Darcy:  How could you name our baby Theodosia?
Stan:  We needed a name for a the birth certificate …
Darcy:  It sounds like a Greek fishing boat, or a crater on the moon or something!

Molly’s fishing boat/astronomical objections aside, Theodosia has plenty of history, stretching back to the Byzantine Empire:

• Saint Theodosia was an eighth-century Constantinople nun.  When the emperor ordered an icon removed, she led a mob to intervene.  The officer dispatched to de-icon was killed – and Theodosia executed in return;
• An aristocratic Theodosia married Byzantine Emperor Leo V in the early 800s.

You’ll find plenty of men named Theodosius or Theodosios, too – it translates roughly to “giving to God.”

Theodosia pops up sparingly over the centuries.  1638 marked the Dublin debut of James Shirley’s comedy The Royal Master.  His Theodosia was sister to the king, torn between two suitors.

From the eighteenth century, there’s:

• The wealthy Theodosia Hawkins-Magill, future Countess of Clanwilliam.  She may have been named after her Aunt Theodosia;
• Anne Steele wrote hymns and devotional poems under the pen name Theodosia;
• US Vice President Aaron Burr married a Theodosia; the couple passed it on to their daughter.  She answered to Theo. After Mrs. Burr’s death, Theo became dad’s official hostess and remained loyal during Burr’s trial for treason (he was acquitted).  She was among the passengers presumed lost in an 1812 shipwreck.  In 1941, Anya Seton authored My Theodosia – a work of historical fiction based on her life – heavy on the fiction.

The 20th century gives us Theodosia Goodman, better known as Theda Barra.  From humble beginnings in Cincinnati, Ohio, she was re-invented as one of Hollywood’s first sex symbols.  She also kick-started the modern PR machine – her invented background included an Egyptian childhood and a career on the Paris stage.  Theda made more than 40 films in the 1910s and 20s, but most were destroyed in a fire.  Her masterpiece – 1915′s A Fool There Was – survives, as does the film’s legacy.  It made William Fox so much money that he founded the studio that remains today – 20th Century Fox.

Thea, Tea and even Teddie could all be nicknames should you choose Theodosia for a daughter.  But she’s not appeared in the US Top 1000 since the 19th century and feels unwieldy even amongst the Isabellas and Alexandras so common today.  The related – and equally antique – Theodora and Dorothea feel more likely to wear well today.