Meaning & Origin
A female given name from Old English, popular at the turn of the 20th century.
Ethel is a girl's and boy's baby name of Old English origin, a short form of compound names beginning with the Old English element æðel meaning "noble." Names like Etheldreda and Ethelburga were common in Anglo-Saxon England, and Ethel emerged as a standalone form in the 19th century.
Ethel was a top-5 U.S. girls' name in the 1890s — one of the defining names of the Gilded Age. Ethel Merman, the "Queen of Broadway," and Ethel Kennedy, matriarch of the Kennedy family, gave it both theatrical and political heft. It's perhaps the ultimate reclaim name — fully ripe for revival.