According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Ariel was given more often to boys than to girls from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s.
Then, in 1982, the girls’ usage surged ahead of the boys’ usage. Less than a decade later, Ariel reached the girls’ top 100 — and stayed there for three years straight.
What caused this growing interest in Ariel as a girl name?
A series of pop-culture nudges, the first of which came along in the late 1970s:
| Girls named Ariel | Boys named Ariel | |
| 1979 | 154 [rank: 951st] | 216 [rank: 581st] |
| 1978 | 162 [rank: 895th] | 224 [rank: 559th] |
| 1977 | 105 | 157 [rank: 675th] |
| 1976 | 63 | 177 [rank: 614th] |
| 1975 | 60 | 175 [rank: 616th] |
This initial increase corresponds to the success of a pop song called “Ariel” [vid] by singer-songwriter Dean Friedman.
The quirky song — about the narrator’s date with “a free spirited, pot-smoking, vegetarian Jewish girl” named Ariel (pronounced AIR-ee-el) — was released in April of 1977 and peaked at #26 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in late June.
During a recent interview, Friedman was asked about the song’s many namesakes. He replied,
Well, you’re right, actually, there are definitely a lot of Ariels out there of a certain age that were not named after a mermaid. And so that’s always a nice surprise, when someone will come up and introduce themselves and say, “I was named after your song.”
The Hebrew name Ariel comprises two elements, the first of which means “lion” and the second of which means “god.” It’s pronounced ahr-ee-EL by Hebrew speakers.
Sources: Bio – Dean Friedman, Ariel (song) – Wikipedia, Billboard Hot 100 for the week of 25 Jun. 1977, From ‘Ariel’ to SongFest: Dean Friedman Discusses His Career, creativity and ’25 Tour! – Almost Famous Magazine [vid], Ariel – Wiktionary, SSA