When the birth of Dolly, the cloned sheep, was announced to the public in 1997 a “Dollymania” started and Dolly became an “iconic animal”. Today its lingering influence is observable in the spread of Dolly iconography across almost all cultural areas. This is not due to the fact alone that Dolly’s birth marked a major scientific breakthrough. The huge resonance the cloned sheep provoked in media and society reaches far beyond her scientific meaning. In intermedia circulation Dolly was associated with different thinking traditions, topoi and motifs from literature and film thereby creating a semantic surplus. We discuss three main semantic complexes—identity and individuality, metaphysics and religion, sexuality and naturality—which open up several ‘docking stations’ for meaning and emotions with potential to polarize groups. We proceed from the hypothesis that this (non-)intended and widely-unpredictable popularity of science in everyday and mass culture is an essential aspect of Dolly becoming iconic. Finally, we show how Dolly’s iconization was unintentionally interlocked with her economic value, the need to acquire funding and the economic possibilities of an emerging field in biotechnology.