Meaning and history
Ethel is a short form of names beginning with the Old English element æðele, meaning “noble.” Coined in the 19th century during a revival of Old English names, it was popularized by William Makepeace Thackeray’s The Newcomes (1855) and C. M. Yonge’s The Daisy Chain (1856). A notable bearer was the American actress and singer Ethel Merman (1908–1984), and the name had greatly declined in popularity by the mid-20th century.
20062006: 13 births, rank #8,715
2007: 17 births, rank #7,394
2008: 13 births, rank #8,965
2009: 15 births, rank #8,058
2010: 14 births, rank #8,271
20112011: 14 births, rank #8,196
2012: 15 births, rank #7,804
2013: 14 births, rank #8,135
2014: 21 births, rank #5,993
2015: 12 births, rank #8,931
20162016: 25 births, rank #5,284
2017: 28 births, rank #4,811
2018: 32 births, rank #4,357
2019: 23 births, rank #5,449
2020: 26 births, rank #4,880
20212021: 27 births, rank #4,833
2022: 28 births, rank #4,793
2023: 23 births, rank #5,390
2024: 27 births, rank #4,893
20252025: 34 births, rank #4,172
Ethel rose from #954 to #889 for girls between 1974 and 1975. Its highest annual birth count came in 1918, with 8,075 births.