Ethel
Ethel is outside the top 1,000 in 2024, with 27 births. Its best rank was 6th, in 1896.
- Rank in 2024
- —outside the top 1,000
- Births in 2024
- 270.00% of girls
- Peak year
- 19188,075 births
- Best rank
- #6in 1896
- Since 1880
- 280,380people given the name
The story in the numbers
278,890 girls have been named Ethel in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1918, with 8,075 births — 0.70% of all girls recorded that year.
The name has all but left use: 27 births in 2024, against 8,075 at the peak.
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1919, and the 1910s alone account for 23%. It has spent 96 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 60 of them in the top 100 and 16 in the top 10.
It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 1,490 boys have also been given it, 0.53% of the total.
Rank among girls, year by year
By decade
| Decade | girls named Ethel | |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 14,866 | |
| 1890s | 31,453 | |
| 1900s | 34,868 | |
| 1910s | 63,662 | |
| 1920s | 62,806 | |
| 1930s | 31,582 | |
| 1940s | 20,582 | |
| 1950s | 11,546 | |
| 1960s | 4,690 | |
| 1970s | 1,499 | |
| 1980s | 547 | |
| 1990s | 273 | |
| 2000s | 187 | |
| 2010s | 198 | |
| 2020s | 131 |
In 1918, its biggest year
Ethel was the 28th most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1918 were Mary, Helen, Dorothy, Margaret and Ruth. See all of 1918.
Names that rose and fell with Ethel
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Maepeak 1918
- Floypeak 1918
- Alphapeak 1916
- Altapeak 1918
- Onapeak 1916
- Gussiepeak 1918
- Eltapeak 1915
- Olapeak 1921
What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.