Name Ethel - meaning, origin, numerology

Ethel (also æthel) is an Old English word meaning "noble". It is frequently attested as the first element in Anglo-Saxon names, both masculine and feminine, e.g. Æthelhard, Æthelred, Æthelwulf; Æthelburg, Æthelflæd, Æthelthryth (Audrey). It corresponds to the Adel- and Edel- in continental (German) names, such as Adolph (Æthelwulf), Adalbert (Albert), Adelheid (Adelaide), Edeltraut and Edelgard. There would some reason to believe that the word is actually taken from "aedilis" or "aedile", the Latin name of a Roman official, whose function was that of a magistrate and superintendent of public property. It was common that in smaller towns in the Roman era that the only public official was the aedile. Importantly, in later Roman times, the Aedile was in charge of the public treasury. The later clerical Latin translation of "aethel" as "clito" may be a reflection of the fact that there was no such formal position after the Roman civil authority disappeared. "Clito" was from "incluto" and an earlier Greek word that certainly did not mean "noble" in the sense of an inherited class status, but rather famous or illustrious.

Some of the feminine Anglo-Saxon names in Æthel- survived into the modern period (e.g. Etheldred Benett 1776–1845). Ethel was in origin used as a familiar form of such names, but it began to be used as a feminine given name in its own right beginning in the mid-19th century, gaining popularity due to characters so named in novels by W. M. Thackeray (The Newcomes - 1855) and Charlotte Mary Yonge (The Daisy Chain whose heroine Ethel's full name is Etheldred - 1856); the actress Ethel Barrymore - born 1879 - was named after The Newcomes character. Notes & Queries published correspondence about the name Ethel in 1872 because it was in fashion. The feminine name's popularity peaked in the 1890. In the United States, it was the 7th most commonly given girl's name in the year 1894. Its use gradually declined during the 20th century, falling below rank 100 by 1940, and below rank 1000 in 1976. Ethel was also occasionally used as a male given name during the period of ca. the 1880s to 1910s, but never with any frequency (never rising above rank 400, or 0.02% in popularity)

People called Ethel

• Ethel D. Allen (1929-1981), the first African-American woman to serve on Philadelphia City Council
• Ethel Anderson (1883–1958), Australian poet, essayist, novelist and painter
• Ethel Percy Andrus (1884–1967), educator and founder of AARP
• Ethel Armes (1876–1945), American journalist and historian
• Ethel Armitage (1873–1957), British archer and 1908 Olympic competitor
• Ethel Ayler (born 1934), American stage and film actress
• Ethel Azama (1934–1984), American jazz and popular singer
• Ethel Barrymore (1879–1959), American stage and screen actress
• Ethel Bentham (1861–1931), English doctor, politician and suffragette
• Ethel Blondin-Andrew (born 1951), Canadian politician and parliamentarian
• Ethel Catherwood (1908–1987), American high jump gold medalist in the 1928 Olympics
• Ethel Clayton (1882–1966), American silent film actress
• Ethel Roosevelt Derby (1891–1977), younger daughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
• Ethel Hays (1892–1989), American cartoonist and illustrator
• Ethel Kennedy (born 1928), American widow of Robert F. Kennedy
• Ethel MacDonald (1909–1960), Scottish anarchist, activist and propagandist
• Ethel Merman (1908–1984), American actress and singer
• Ethel L. Payne (1911–1991), African American journalist
• Ethel Rosenberg (1915–1953), American executed for espionage
• Ethel Schwabacher (1903–1984), American abstract expressionist painter
• Ethel Shannon (1898–1951), American silent film actress
• Ethel Smith (organist) (1910–1996), American organist and recording artist
• Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), English composer and women's suffrage leader
• Ethel Turner (1872–1958), Australian novelist and children's writer
• Ethel Lilian Voynich (1864–1960), English novelist and musician
• Ethel Waters (1896–1977), American blues and jazz vocalist and actress

Fictional characters

• Big Ethel, from Archie Comics
• Ethel Hallow, from The Worst Witch book series by Jill Murphy
• Ethel Mertz, from the television program I Love Lucy
• Ethel Mertz, a Richard Christy character from The Howard Stern Show
• Ethel Skinner, in the British soap opera EastEnders
• Ethel Thayer, a character from On Golden Pond

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English: 19th-century revival of an Old English or Continental Germanic short form of the various female personal names beginning with the Germanic element ethel noble, including Ethelburga ‘noble fortress’, Etheldreda, and Ethelgiva ‘noble gift’. All of these are now very rare (and were never common), but Ethel itself enjoyed great popularity for a period at the beginning of the 20th century, although it is now out of fashion.

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