Dorian

Tracing Dorian's Greek roots, the Dorian tribes of Ancient Greece seem to have derived their name from their (mythical) founder Dorus, son of Hellen (male, from which "Hellenic" is derived) and Orseïs. Dorus / Doros likely derives from the Greek work "doron" (δῶρον) meaning "gift."

I really have to disagree with the idea that Oscar Wilde was using an obscure Irish surname for his character. He may have been raised in Ireland, but he was from an Anglo-Irish family and, like many intellectuals of his time and place, had an education which focused heavily on the classics. There was a book published in 2018 called "Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity", and he translated some of the works of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus into English. Herodotus was from the Dorian colony of Halicarnassus and wrote much about the Dorians in his histories.

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Given what we know of Wilde's personality and the part he played in the Aesthetic Movement, it's just much more likely that Wilde was thinking of ancient Greece than of a rare Irish surname when he named his character. [noted -ed]

The Dorian mode (a scale which is basically all the white notes beginning on D) in music is the only scale whose inversion is the exact same; like a mirror image. The natural symmetry within the Dorian mode may have been used by Oscar Wilde to foreshadow the reflections between the Picture and Dorian, and also the mirror he puts beside the Picture. I was very excited when I saw this link!

Dorian is also an unrelated French name, from D'Orion, a surname meaning a person from Orion. There seems to be 3 separate names here.

Is there evidence that Wilde took this name from the Greek? Because it seems more likely that he took it from the Irish Doran. He was Irish, Dorian is a known variant of the surname Doran, and the meaning fits the character well. [noted -ed]

Dorian means "gift from the sea".

It's a variant of Doran. The variation apparently arose in the County Donegal area of Ireland. There's records of people having the name long before Oscar Wilde's novel, though, most of them have it as a surname, not as a personal name.

Also, because both names (Dorian and Doran) are Irish, it's almost certain that Oscar Wilde had encountered people with the name/surname "Dorian", seeing as he, himself, was Irish. There's a chance he was the first person to use Dorian as a personal name, but he did not make it up, and it is not Greek. You can read the meaning behind "Doran" on this very site.

I believe this name is Greek meaning "A Gift".

I found on another site that Dorian wasn't entered, but a similar name - Doran, I believe - was, and it meant "stranger". I think that's something close to what this means - another similar name means "wanderer". The name is very close personally to Oscar Wilde, who invented it, and I think it is meant to mean that. Dorian is a very ambiguous character in the book. His last name, "Gray", suggests as much also.

My research found this name to be from the tribe the Dorians, who existed around the time of the Ionians, which means from the sea. The name means "Golden" or of Gold in Greek. The Dorians where a warring Greek tribe that conquered a region that spanned as far west as France from modern day Greece.

This is a Greek name by origin. The Dorians were a nomadic tribe that sacked Athens and later settled in Sparta. The name means something along the lines of "from the sea". It is also the name of a musical mode that is rooted in Greek music. It is a Greek name not an English one.

It IS English, because while it's origins are Greek, it's not a real Greek name. Oscar Wilde created it, deriving it from a Greek word, so it's an English coinage.