Sophia

History

The given name is first recorded in the beginning of the 4th century.

Popularity

Sophia is a common female name in the Eastern Orthodox countries. It became very popular in the West beginning in the later 1990s and became one of the most popularly given girls' names in the Western world in the first decades of the 21st century.

Sophia was known as the personification of wisdom by early Christians and Saint Sophia is also an early Christian martyr. Both associations contributed to the usage of the name. The name was comparatively common in continental Europe in the medieval and early modern period.

It was popularized in Britain by the German House of Hanover in the 18th century.

It was repeatedly popularised among the wider population, by the name of a character in the novel Tom Jones (1749) by Henry Fielding, in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) by Oliver Goldsmith, and in the 1960s by Italian actress Sophia Loren (b. 1934).

Sophia was comparatively popular in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century; its use declined in the 1920s to 1950s; it became again moderately popular during the 1960s and increased in use.

During the 1990s to the 2010s, the popularity of the name rose dramatically in many countries throughout the western world. Suggested influences for this trend include Sofía Vergara and Sofia Coppola (popular from the late 1990s) and Sofia Hellqvist (popular from the 2000s).

Sophia and variants of the name remain among the most currently popularly given names for girls in countries across Europe as well as countries in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and others.

In 2022, Sophia was the fifth most popular name given to girls in Canada, while Sofia was 13th.

Name variants

Greek Σοφία was adopted without significant phonological changes into numerous languages, as Sophia (German, and thence English) and Sofia (Romance languages, and thence also to Germanic languages and Finnish, etc.).

The spelling Soffia is Icelandic and Welsh.

Hungarian has Zsófia.

Modern Spanish uses the acute diacritic, Sofía.

South and East Slavic and Baltic languages have Sofija (Софија), Sofiya (София) and Sofya (Софья).

West Slavic (Polish and Czech-Slovak) introduced a voiced sibilant, Zofia, Žofia, Žofie.

French has the (disyllabic) hypocoristic Sophie, which was also introduced in German, Dutch/Flemish, English, and Scandinavian in the spelling Sofie and Sophy. A Dutch hypocoristic is Sofieke. Russian has the hypocoristic Соня (Sonya), which in the late 19th century was introduced to Western languages, in the spellings Sonya, Sonia and Sonja, via characters with this name in the novels Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866, English translation 1885) and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869, English translation 1886).

Turkish Safiye is from the unrelated Arabic Safiyya (صفية "pure").

Persian Sofia (Persian: صوفیا) is from unrelated Sufi, a sect of Islam.

Saints

Saint Sophia of Milan, feast day 17 September

Saint Sophia of Rome, martyr, feast day 15 May

Royalty

Sofia

Sofia of Bavaria Wittelsbach (1376–1425), Queen of Bohemia

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), a Spanish princess

Sophia

Sophia (530–c. 601), 6th-century Byzantine empress

Sophia, 10th-century Byzantine empress

Sophia of Minsk (d. 1198), Danish queen

Sophia of Halshany (1405–1461), Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania

Sophia Palaiologina (1455–1503), Grand Duchess of Moscow

Sophia Stuart (1606), daughter of James VI and I

Sophia of Hanover (1630–1714), heir to the English throne

Sophia Dorothea of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1636–1689), German noblewoman

Sophia Alekseyevna (1657–1704), Russian regent

Sophia Dorothea of Celle (1666–1726), Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg, wife of George I of Great Britain

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

Other versions

Safiye Sultan (1550–1619), wife of Murad III, mother of Mehmed III; originally named Sofia

Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark (1914–2001), later Princess of Hesse, Princes of Hannover

Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh (born 1965), wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh

Sofya Shcherbatova (1798–1885), Russian philanthropist

Sofya Urusova (1804–1889), Russian lady-in-waiting and the favourite of Nicholas I

Arts and entertainment

Sofia (Filipino singer), Filipino singer

Sofia (Swedish singer) (née Sofia Berntson), Swedish singer

Sophia Abrahão (born 1991), Brazilian actress

Sofia Achaval de Montaigu, Argentine fashion model

Sofia Adlersparre (1808–1862), Swedish artist

Sophia Agranovich, Ukrainian-American pianist, recording artist and music educator

Sofia Ahlbom (1803–1868), Swedish artist

Sophia Ahrens (born 1996), German-English fashion model

Sofia Akimova (1824–1889), Russian actress

Sophia Al Maria, Arabic-American artist, writer and filmmaker

Sofia Alaoui, French-Moroccan director and screenwriter

Sofia Alexander, Mexican animator and voice actress

Sophia Ali (born 1995), American actress

Sophia Aliberti (born 1963), Greek actress and TV presenter

Sophia Nahli Allison, American filmmaker and photographer

Sofia Alves (born 1973), Portuguese actress

Sofia Amara (born 1968), French-Moroccan journalist

Politics

Sophia Karen Edem Ackuaku (born 1972), Ghanaian politician

Sophia Adinyira (born 1949), Ghanaian Supreme Court judge

Sophia Aggelonitis, Canadian politician

Sophia Akuffo (born 1949), Ghanaian judge

Sofía Almeida, Ecuadorian politician

Sofia Amloh (born 1986), Swedish politician

Sofia Andrade, Portuguese politician

Sofia Arkelsten (born 1976), Swedish politician

Sofía Betancourt, American minister

Sofía Brambilla (born 1980), Argentine politician

Sofia Carreira (born 1974), Portuguese politician

Sofía Castro Ríos (born 1970), Mexican lawyer and politician

Sophia Chan (born 1958), Hong Kong professor and politician

Sophia Chikirou (born 1979), French politician

Sophia Chitlik, American politician

Sophia Chote, Trinidad and Tobago politician

Sofía Cid (born 1971), Chilean politician

Sophia Dallas (1798–1869), Second Lady of the United States

Science

Sophia Ananiadou, Greek-British computer scientist and computational linguist

Sophia Brahe (1556–1643), Danish astronomer

Sofía Calero, Spanish chemist and academic

Sophia Drossopoulou, Greek computer scientist

Sophia Eckerson (1880–1954), American botanist and microchemist

Sophia Economou, American physicist and academic

Sofia Feltzing (born 1965), Swedish astronomer

Sophia Getzowa (1872–1946), Belarusian-Israeli pathologist and scientist

Sophia Hober, Swedish researcher

Sofya Khafizovna Khakimova (1924–2015), Tajikistani physician

Sophia Levy (1888–1963), American astronomer and numerical analyst

Sofia Magid (1892–1954), Soviet ethnographer

Sofia Mensurado, Portuguese scientist

Sofia Merajver (born 1953), Argentine medical oncologist

Sofia Niyozova (1919–2010), Tajik scientist

Sofia Quaglioni, nuclear physicist

Sofya Raskhodnikova, American computer scientist

Sofia Romanskaya (1886–1969), Soviet astronomer

Sports

Sofia Akateva (born 2007), Russian figure skater

Sofia Akhmeteli (born 1981), Georgian alpine skier

Sofia Andler (born 1974), Swedish equestrian

Sofia Anker-Kofoed (born 1994), Swedish footballer

Sofia Araújo (born 1994), Portuguese tennis and padel player

Sofía Arreola (born 1991), Mexican cyclist

Sofia Arvidsson (born 1984), Swedish tennis player

Sofia Asoumanaki (born 1997), Greek rower

Sofia Assefa (born 1987), Ethiopian long-distance runner

Sofia Åstedt (born 2003), Swedish swimmer

Sofia Asvesta (born 2000), Cypriot judoka

Sophia Baram (born 2008), American pair skater

Sofía Barriguete (born 2000), Spanish cyclist

Sophia Batchelor (born 1995), New Zealand swimmer

Sophia Beckmon (born 2005), American athlete

Sofia Beggin (born 1997), Italian racing cyclist

Sofia Bekatorou (born 1977), Greek sailor and Olympic gold medalist

Sofia Beketova (born 1948), Soviet rower

Other fields

Sophia Adams, British archaeologist and curator

Sofía Álvarez, multiple people

Sophia Amoruso (born 1984), American businesswoman

Sophia Anstice (1849–1926), New Zealand dressmaker, draper and businesswoman

Sophia Antoniadis (1895–1972), Greek university teacher

Sophia N. Antonopoulou, Greek economist

Sophia Armitt (1847–1908), British teacher, writer and naturalist

Sophia Bardina (1853–1883), Russian revolutionary

Sophia Bekele, Ethiopian-American businesswoman, entrepreneur, corporate executive and consultant founder CEO of CBS international

Sofia Berezanska (1924–2024), Ukrainian archeologist

Sophia Blackmore (1857–1945), Australian missionary

Sofya Bogomolets (1856–1892), Russian revolutionary

Sofia Börjesson (born 1964), Swedish professor in Technology Management Department at Chalmers University of Technology

Sophia Braeunlich (1854–1898), American journalist

Sophia Elisabet Brenner (1659–1730), Swedish writer, poet, feminist and salon hostess

Sophia Brown, multiple people

Fictional characters

Sophia Aubrey, from the Aubrey-Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian

Sofia Constantinas, from the comic Wonder Woman

Sofia Cordova, main character from the animated TV show Sofia the First

Sofia Curtis, from the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Sofia Dupre, on the American soap opera The Young and the Restless

Sophia Esteed, from the video game Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

Sophia Forrester, from the animated TV series Last Exile

Sophia Hapgood, from the video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Sofia Johnson, from film The Color Purple

Sofia Lamb, from the video game BioShock 2

Sophia Leigh, from the video game Tomb Raider III

Sophia Lopez, from the TV series Nip/Tuck

Sophia Peletier, from the TV series and comic books The Walking Dead

Sophia Marlowe, from the TV series Girlboss

Sophia Petrillo, from the TV series The Golden Girls

Sofia Petrovna, from the novel of the same name