Rhoda (name)

Rhoda is a female given name, originating in both Greek and Latin. Its primary meaning is "rose" but it can also mean "from Rhodes", the Greek island originally named for its roses. The name was mostly used in the 18th and 19th centuries but goes back at least to the first century as it is recorded in the New Testament of the Bible (see Rhoda (biblical figure)).

Politicians

 * Rhoda Grant (born 1963), Scottish Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament
 * Rhoda Fox Graves (1877–1950), American suffragist, woman's rights activist, and pioneering female Republican politician
 * Rhoda Jacobs (born 1937), American member of the New York State Assembly
 * Rhoda Moy-Crawford (born 1989), Jamaican politician
 * Rhoda Perry (born 1943), member of the Rhode Island Senate

Writers

 * Rhoda Broughton (1840–1920), Welsh novelist
 * Rhoda Lerman (1936–2015), American author
 * Rhoda Shipman (born 1968), American comic book writer
 * Rhoda Truax (1901–2000), American author

Scientists

 * Rhoda Alani (born 1964), American oncologist
 * Rhoda Bubendey Métraux (1914–2003), anthropologist

Actresses

 * Rhoda Gemignani (born 1940), American actress
 * Rhoda Griffis (born 1965), American actress
 * Rhoda Jordan (born 1979), African-American actress
 * Rhoda Montemayor (born 1979) English actress
 * Rhoda Williams (1930 - 2006), American actress

Singers and musicians

 * Rhoda Chase (1914–1978), American blues singer
 * Rhoda Dakar (born 1958), British singer and musician, lead singer of the Bodysnatchers
 * Rhoda Hutchinson, a member of the Hutchinson Family Singers, a group popular in the 1840s
 * Rhoda Scott (born 1938), African-American hard bop and soul jazz organist

Other

 * Rhoda Abbott (1873–1946), only female passenger to go down with the Titanic and survive
 * Rhoda Billings (born 1937), American lawyer and a former justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court
 * Rhoda Haas Goldman (1924–1996), American philanthropist and heiress
 * (Rhoda) Lavinia Goodell (1839–1880), the first woman licensed to practice law in Wisconsin
 * Rhoda Holmes Nicholls (1854–1930), British-born American painter
 * Rhoda Pritzker (1914–2007), British-American philanthropist
 * Rhoda Richards (1784–1879), wife of Mormon leader Joseph Smith and, after his death, Brigham Young
 * Rhoda Wise (1888–1948), American alleged stigmatist

Fictional characters

 * Rhoda Dendron, on the animated television series Darkwing Duck
 * Rhoda Penmark, in William March's novel The Bad Seed
 * Rhoda Morgenstern, title character of the television show Rhoda
 * Rhoda, in The Waves
 * Rhoda, in 12 Oz. Mouse
 * Rhoda Williams, protagonist of the 2011 movie Another Earth
 * Rhoda Swartz, in William Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair
 * Rhoda Henry, in the novels The Winds of War and War and Remembrance and the two miniseries