Diminutive of Dorothy, from Greek meaning gift of God.
Dollie is a warm diminutive of Dorothy, the Latinate rendering of the Greek Dorothea — formed from doron (gift) and theos (god), meaning "gift of God." The shortened forms Dolly and Dollie became so common as pet names in 17th- and 18th-century England that the word "doll" for a child's toy figure is itself derived from them, a linguistic echo that reveals how deeply the name embedded itself in everyday affection. The name carried a cheerful, familiar quality through the Victorian and Edwardian eras, when diminutives on baptismal certificates were entirely respectable.
Dollie Radford, the English poet and associate of William Morris's circle in the 1880s and 1890s, gave the name a literary credential, her verse appearing in the aesthetic journals of the day. In American life, Dollie and Dolly were widespread through the late nineteenth century, particularly in the rural South and Midwest, where the soft -ie ending marked a kind of intimate warmth. The name's most famous modern inheritor is Dolly Parton, born Dolly Rebecca Parton in 1946 in the Tennessee mountains, whose songwriting genius, business acumen, and boundless generosity have made the name synonymous with a particular kind of American magnanimity.
The toy connotation that once clung to the name has been thoroughly displaced by that legacy. Dollie, spelled with the older -ie ending, retains the Victorian charm of the original while feeling slightly more antique and singular than the more familiar Dolly.