Portia (given name) explained

Portia is a feminine given name taken from the name of the Roman Porcia gens, which was ultimately derived from the Latin porcus, or pig. It is best known as a character who disguises herself as a man to act as a lawyer and save the life of the defendant in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Porsha is a modern spelling variant.^[1]

Women

• Portia (wife of Brutus) or Porcia, the wife of Roman senator Marcus Junius Brutus
• Portia Arthur (born 1990), Ghanaian author, writer and reporter
• Portia Dawson, American actress
• Portia de Rossi or Portia DeGeneres, Australian-born actress
• Portia Doubleday, American actress
• Portia Geach (1873–1959), Australian artist and feminist
• Portia Holman (1903–1983), Australian child psychiatrist
• Portia Mansfield (1887–1979), American dance educator and choreographer
• Portia Robinson (1926–2023), Australian historian
• Portia Holmes Shields, American academic administrator
• Portia Simpson-Miller, political leader of Jamaica's People's National Party and Prime Minister of Jamaica
• Portia White, Canadian singer
• Portia Wu (born 1970), American lawyer
• Portia Zvavahera (born 1985), Zimbabwean painter

Pen name

• Portia, pen name of Abigail Adams (1744–1818)
• Portia, pen name of Grizelda Elizabeth Cottnam Tonge (1803–1825)

Fictional

• Portia (The Merchant of Venice), a character in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice
• Portia Quayne, the protagonist in The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
• Portia Gibbons, a character on The Mighty B!
• Portia, a minor character in The Hunger Games
• Portia Copeland, a character in Carson McCullers' novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
• Portia Blake, the lead character in the American radio and television soap opera Portia Faces Life
• Portia, a spider protagonist in Children of Time, a novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Portia, Door's mother in Neverwhere, a novel by Neil Gaiman
• Portia Featherington, the matriarch of the Featherington family in the Bridgerton novels and Netflix adaptation.
• Princess Portia, a character in Barbie: Princess Charm School.
• Portia, from the "Spencer and Portia" segments of 101 Dalmatian Street

Notes and References

1. Book: Hanks. Patrick. Hardcastle. Kate . Hodges. Flavia. 2006. Oxford Dictionary of First Names. Oxford University Press . 60. 0-19-861060-2.