Name of the Week: Sophia

 

 

 

Origin:

Sophia derives from the Ancient Greek name Σοφία meaning "wisdom, insight, intelligence" and from which we get English words sophistication and philosophy. To the ancient Greeks, Wisdom (Sophia) was personified as a goddess. Alongside  temperance, courage and justice, wisdom (sophia) was also one of Plato's four cardinal virtues — basic virtues regarded for a virtuous life.  For early Christians Hagia Sophia "Holy Wisdom" was a personification of divine Wisdom and attributed to Christ. The famous church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was dedicated to Christ by Constantine the Great. Veneration of a Saint Sophia and her three daughters — Faith, Hope and Charity — dates from the 6th century. Most scholars believe that this was they were allegorical figures who personified the three theological virtues and hagia sophia.

Usage:

Early European Use The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names has a modest number of 23 instances of name Sophia in use in Antiquity. Empress Sophia, or Aelia Sophia (c. 530–c. 601), was the Byzantine Empress consort of Justin II and niece of the famous Empress Theodora.  The name was widely used across continental Europe in moderate numbers during the Middle Ages, particularly among the nobility. British Royalty Sophia was introduced to British royalty thanks to the marriage of James VI & I to Anne of Denmark. They named their last child Sophia after Anne's mother Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow (1557–1631) Queen consort of Denmark and Norway [at this time, the German Sophie was pronounced much like we pronounced Sophia now].  Sadly, little Princess Sophia survived only for a day. However, James and Anne's eldest daughter, Elizabeth Stuart, also used her grandmother's name for her fifth daughter, Sophia of Hanover (1630–1714).  As a Protestant and granddaughter of James I, Sophia of Hanover became the heir to the throne when the English Parliament passed the Act of Settlement in 1701. It decreed that, in the event of no legitimate issue from William III or Anne, the throne of Great Britain would pass to Sophia and her Protestant heirs, cutting off the Catholic Stuart line.  So why was there no Sophia I of Great Britain? Sadly, Sophia died just less than two months before Queen Anne, so her claim to the throne passed on to her eldest son, George Louis, Elector of Hanover, who ascended as George I on 1 August 1714. By the time of his accession, George I's mother, wife, sister and daughter were all named Sophia, firmly putting the name into British royalty. Other Georgian royals also bore the name in later years. George II named his second daughter Amelia Sophia Eleanor (1711-1786), and George III's daughter Princess Sophia Matilda of the United Kingdom (1777-1848) was very close in age to her first cousin Princess Sophia Matilda of Gloucester (1773-1844), daughter of Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. The name became little used in British royalty when Victoria came to the throne. When her eldest daughter, Vicky, named one of her daughters Sophie in 1870 [Princess Sophie of Prussia (1870-1932)] in the German style, Queen Victoria wrote to her: "Poor good Sir C. Lewis would have been delighted at the idea of one of my grandchildren being called Sophia on account of the Electress Sophia. Else I think the name ugly."* Given Queen Victoria's legal right to approve names of all the royal children born in Britain, and the changing fashion in names, Sophia gradually fell out of use in the immediate British royal family. Pronunciation From the 18th century onward, Sophia was traditionally pronounced sə-FĪ-ə in Britain, rhyming with Mariah (as in Mariah Carey). Sophy was used as the typical short-form.  This has, in recent decades, been largely replaced by the European pronunciation sə-FEE-ə (perhaps promoted by the fame of actress Sophia Loren, whose birth name was Sofia Scicolone) though the traditional British pronunciation does survive in small pockets. Actress Sophia Myles has her name pronounced sə-FĪ-ə, for example. Even E.G. Withycombe was still listing Sophia as being pronounced sə-FĪ-ə in the third edition of The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names in 1977.  England and Wales Sophia did not appear at all in Smith Bannister's rank of top 50 names from 1538 to 1700 in England, but the name was in use in small numbers.  According to Leslie Dunkling, Sophia was #50 in the most popular girls names in England and Wales in 1700 — before George I ascended with all his Sophia relatives — and had risen to #21 in 1800. The name also had a literary boost. It was used in for the character Sophia "Sophy" Western ("model of virtue, beauty and all good qualities"*) in The History of Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding and also a character in Oliver Goldsmith's popular novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1776) in which it was regarded as a "romantic name." Jane Austen used Sophia "Sophy" in her 1818 novel Persuasion and there is also Sophia "Sophy" Wackles in Charles Dicken's The Old Curiosity Shop (1840). Sophia stayed in the top 50 of England and Wales up until 1870, after which it began to decline, leaving the top 100 at the turn of the 20th century: 1840: 1850:  1860:  1870:  1880:  1890: 1900:   #28 #40 #44 #61 #75 #96 #127 Data from the 1881 census (see image, right) shows that Sophia was most common in the South East of England. Throughout the 20th century, Sophia was outside of the top 100 in England and Wales. The French form Sophie moved into the top 100 in England and Wales for the first time at #85 in 1974 By 1984 it was #38 and hit the top 10 at #6 in 1994, reaching #1 in 1996. It remained in the top 10 until 2014. This can be seen in Dunkling's data for the number of girls registered with the name Sophia and Sophie in every 10,000 births in England and Wales over the 20th century:    1900 1925  1935  1950  1955  1960  1965  1970  1975  1980  1985  1990 Sophia    10    2             4     2     2     2     4     20 Sophie     -    2     -     -     -     2     -     9    10     20    36   164 Sophia reentered the top 100 in 1996 when it ranked #95. It steadily rose up the top 100, reaching #49 in 2006 and #18 in 2011. It has been in the top 20 ever since.  Sofia, too, has also been rising during the same time period. It broke into the top 200 in 2000 and the top 100 in 2005 when it ranked #96. It has been in the top 30 since 2013.  In 2016, Sophia ranked #11 with 2,636 births and Sofia ranked #29 with 1,683 births in England and Wales. However, when all the different spellings are added together, Sophia/Sofia et al ranked #4 overall.

Famous Bearers:

Royalty: * Sofia of Bavaria Wittelsbach (1376–1425), Queen of Bohemia. * Sophia Palaiologina (1455–1503), Grand Duchess of Moscow. * Sophia of Hanover (1630–1714), the Electress of Hanover from 1692 to 1698; granddaughter of James I and heir to the English throne. * Sophia Alekseyevna (1657–1704), Russian regent. * Sophia Dorothea of Celle (1666–1726), Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg, wife of George I of Great Britain. * Sophia Charlotte of Hanover (1668–1705), Queen consort in Prussia, sister of George I. * Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (1687–1757), Queen consort of Prussia, daughter of George I of Great Britain. * Sophia Magdalen of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1700–1770), Queen consort of Denmark-Norway. * Princess Sophia Dorothea of Prussia (1719–1765), daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. * Margravine Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt (1736–1798), Duchess of Württemberg. * Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1758–1794), Princess and Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. * Princess Sophia of the United Kingdom (1777–1848), daughter of George III. * Princess Sophia of Gloucester (1773–1844), daughter of Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh and niece of George III. * Sophia of Nassau (1836–1913), Queen consort of Sweden and Norway. * Countess Sophia Ignatyeva (1850–1944), Russian noble. * Sophia of Prussia (1870–1932), Queen consort of Greece. * Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark (1914-2001), later Princess of Hesse, Princess of Hannover. * Queen Sofía of Spain (born 1938), Queen consort of Spain. * Princess Sofia, Duchess of Värmland (born 1984), wife of Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland. * Infanta Sofía of Spain (born 2007), second child of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. History: * Saint Sophia of Milan, 2nd century saint. * Saint Sophia of Rome, 4th century martyr, often conflated with the above. * Sophia Brahe (1556–1643), Danish astronomer. * Sophia Baddeley (1745–1786), English actress. * Sophia Lee (1750–1824), English novelist. * Sophia Dussek (1775–1831), Scottish composer. * Sophia Peabody Hawthorne (1809–1871), American painter. * Sophia Jex-Blake (1840–1912), British physician. * Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891), Russian mathematician. * Sophia Karp (1861–1904), Romanian actress. * Sophia Eckerson (1880-1954), American botanist and microchemist. * Sophia Yakovlevna Parnok (1885–1933), Russian poet. * Zofia Kossak-Szczucka (1889–1968), Polish writer. Contemporary: * Sophia Loren [born Sofia Scicolone](born 1934), Italian actress. * Sofia Shinas (born 1968), Canadian artist. * Sofia Milos (born 1969), Swiss actress. * Sofia Coppola (born 1971), American actress and director. * Sofía Vergara (born 1972), Colombian model and actress. * Sophia Bush (born 1982), American actress. * Sofia Essaïdi (born 1984), Franco-Moroccan singer. * Sophia Abrahão (born 1991), Brazilian actress. * Sofia Vassilieva (born 1992), American actress. * Sofia Richie (born 1998), American fashion model, daughter of Lionel Richie. Literature and Other Media: * Sophia Western, main heroine of Henry Fielding's novel The History of Tom Jones (1749). * Sophia Primrose, a character in Oliver Goldsmith's novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1776). * Sophia Croft, a character in Jane Austen's Persuasion (1818). * Sophia Wackles, a character in Charles Dicken's The Old Curiosity Shop (1840). * Princess Sofia, main character from the Disney Junior television series Sofia the First. * Sofia Serrano, a character from the film Vanilla Sky (2001). * Sofia Dupre, a character on the American soap opera The Young and the Restless.

Variants:

Sofia (Spanish, Italian, Ger,an, Scandinavian, Russian, Slavic, Portuguese), Sofiya (Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian), Sofija (Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Lithuanian, Latvian), Sophie (French, German, Dutch), Zofia (Polish)

Pronunciation:

sə-FEE-ə ; sə-FĪ-ə  [key]

Possible  diminutives:

Soph, Sophie, Sosie, Fee, Fifi

Sibling Names:

Olivia     Amelia     Bella     Eliza     Isabella     Esme  George     Noah     Leo     Oliver     Max     Theo

Name Lists:

Gorgeously Georgian   Royal Names of Europe   Latinate Lovelies   Names from Jane Austen   Dickensian Names

 

If you like Sophia you may also like:   Emilia, Lucia, Eva, Clara, Lydia, Julia, Mia, Sienna, Thea, Freya

Thanks to Danielle for requesting this name.