From Greek 'pan' (all) and 'doron' (gift), meaning all-gifted; the first woman in Greek myth.
Pandora is one of the most mythologically dense names in the Greek tradition, compounded from pan (all) and doron (gift), yielding "all-gifted" or "all-giving" — a name that Hesiod gave to the first mortal woman in his Theogony and Works and Days. In Hesiod's telling, Pandora was fashioned by Hephaestus at Zeus's direction as a beautiful punishment for humanity after Prometheus stole fire from the gods; each deity contributed a quality — grace, cunning, speech, beauty — making her the sum of divine endowment. Her famous pithos (mistranslated since Erasmus as a "box") contained all the evils of the world along with the spirit of Hope, which remained inside when Pandora closed the lid.
Despite — or perhaps because of — this complicated mythological origin, Pandora has enjoyed a distinguished literary afterlife. John Milton alludes to her in Paradise Lost as a parallel to Eve; PreRaphaelite painters returned repeatedly to her image; and in more recent decades she has been reclaimed by feminist classicists who argue that early readings maligned a figure whose original name meant not "curious troublemaker" but "giver of all gifts," repositioning her as a figure of abundance rather than catastrophe. The Pandora jewelry company and the music streaming service bearing her name have further normalized the word in contemporary culture.
As a given name, Pandora is rare but not unprecedented, found in British records and occasionally in American ones throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It sits squarely in the current revival of mythological names — alongside Persephone and Calliope — appealing to parents who want a name with genuine ancient depth, sonic beauty (those open vowels, the feminine -a ending), and a story rich enough to last a lifetime.