Submitted Name Revision History

Name used by the Italian poets Matteo Maria Boiardo and Ludovico Ariosto in their epic poems Orlando innamorato (1483-1495) and Orlando furioso (1516-1532), where it belongs to a Saracen princess.

Boiardo perhaps intended it to mean "gift of the dawn", derived from Greek δῶρον (doron) meaning "gift" combined with Greek λύκη (lyke) meaning "light" as well as "morning twilight, dawn". It is also possible that he created the name by combining the existing names Dora and Alice.

This name was subsequently used by the Italian writer Giovanni Francesco Straparola in his collection of fairy tales The Facetious Nights of Straparola (1550). It was also used for characters in multiple operas, including John Dryden's Marriage à la mode (1673) and Antonio Salieri's Il ricco d'un giorno (1784). More recently it was employed by the Brazilian musician Dorival Caymmi in his song Doralice, which was covered by João Gilberto in 1960.