Ariel

Where Ariel comes from

From Biblical Hebrew אֲרִיאֵל (ari'él, a compound of אֲרִי (arí, “lion”) + אֵל (él, “God”), literally “lion of God”). * (moon of Uranus): All of Uranus’s moons are named after characters created by William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. The names of all four satellites of Uranus then known were suggested by John Herschel in 1852 at the request of William Lassell, though it is uncertain if Herschel devised the names, or if Lassell did so and then sought Herschel’s permission. Ariel is the name of the leading sylph in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and also the spirit who serves Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
— Wiktionary's entry for Ariel
  • Hebrew
  • 3 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1892
    First appearance
    #1,450 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1928
    Ariel Sharon born
    Prime Minister of Israel from 2001 to 2006
  3. 1974
    Ariel Ortega born
    Argentine footballer
  4. 1982
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  5. 1991
    Peak, #66
    5,411 babies named Ariel — more than any year before or since.
  6. 1994
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #145.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from Hebrew, also ascribed to spirits and angels in English literature.
  • A female given name from Hebrew, used mainly since the 1980s.
Namesakes
  • Ariel Sharon · Prime Minister of Israel from 2001 to 2006, 1928–2014
  • Ariel Ortega · Argentine footballer, born 1974
  • Ariel Winter · American actress, born 1998
  • Ariel Henry · Haitian politician and neurosurgeon, born 1949

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.