How popular is the baby name Ariele in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Ariele.

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Popularity of the baby name Ariele


Posts that mention the name Ariele

What gave the baby name Arielle a boost in 1988?

The character Arielle from the TV series "General Hospital" (1963-)
Arielle Ashton from “General Hospital“

The baby name Arielle was already on the rise when it suddenly doubled in usage in 1989:

  • 1990: 1,569 baby girls named Arielle [rank: 185th]
  • 1989: 1,530 baby girls named Arielle [rank: 185th]
  • 1988: 653 baby girls named Arielle [rank: 368th]
  • 1987: 341 baby girls named Arielle [rank: 581st]
  • 1986: 318 baby girls named Arielle [rank: 604th]

Similar spellings (like Ariele, Aurielle, Arrielle, Aryelle, and Aerielle) also saw higher usage that year.

Like most Ariel-based names, Arielle went on to reach peak usage in 1991, thanks to The Little Mermaid. But the animated film wasn’t released until November of 1989 — so it couldn’t have affected Arielle prior to 1989, and wouldn’t have affected it very much in 1989 either. (The usage of Ariel itself only increased by 41% that year.)

Instead, I think a character on the long-running ABC soap opera General Hospital was influencing the name during the last two years of the 1980s.

In October of 1988, Lady Arielle Ashton (played by actress Jane Higginson) sailed into fictional Port Charles on a yacht with her husband, Lord Larry Ashton. The man who became the ship’s mechanic, Colton Shore, happened to be Arielle’s former lover. Arielle and Colton came close to resuming their relationship, but Colton ultimately chose Felicia over Arielle, and Arielle left Port Charles (alone) in May of 1989.

What are your thoughts on the spelling Arielle? (Do you like it more or less than Ariel?)

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Image: Screenshot of General Hospital

How did “The Little Mermaid” influence baby names?

The character Ariel from the movie "The Little Mermaid" (1989)
Ariel from “The Little Mermaid“

The Little Mermaid — which marked a return to the Walt Disney company’s tried-and-true formula of creating animated musical adaptations of folktales, fairy-tales, and other well-known stories (e.g., Pinocchio, Cinderella) — was released in theaters in November of 1989.

It went on to become the ninth-highest-grossing film of the year, and kicked off the “Disney renaissance” of the 1990s.

The movie’s protagonist, a teenage mermaid named Ariel (pronounced AIR-ee-el), was the daughter of King Triton, ruler of the undersea kingdom of Atlantica.

Ariel, who had long been fascinated by the human world, fell in love with a human prince — right before rescuing him from a shipwreck.

When Ariel’s father found out that she’d had contact with a human — something that was “strictly forbidden” for merfolk — he became enraged and destroyed her large collection of human artifacts (e.g., a dinner fork, a tobacco pipe).

Distraught, Ariel decided to make a deal with Ursula the sea witch. She would be transformed into a human for three days, and, if she could get the prince to fall in love with her during that time, she would remain a human forever. If not, she would return to the ocean and become Ursula’s prisoner.

A year after The Little Mermaid came out, not only did the name Triton debut in the U.S. baby name data, but the name Ariel — which was already on the rise for baby girls (thanks to a song, a soap opera, and another soap opera) — entered the girls’ top 100 for the very first time:

Girls named ArielBoys named Ariel
19923,961 [rank: 87th]456 [rank: 472nd]
19915,411† [rank: 66th]666† [rank: 360th]
19903,607 [rank: 94th]408 [rank: 482nd]
19891,284 [rank: 209th]383 [rank: 489th]
1988911 [rank: 277th]345 [rank: 493rd]
†Peak usage

A year after that, Ariel reached peak usage (for both genders, interestingly).

Also peaking in 1991 were slew of other spellings: Aerial, Aeriel, Aeriell, Aireal, Airiel, Airielle, Areial, Areil, Arial, Arieal, Ariele, Arielle, Arriel, Arrielle, Auriel, and Ayriel.

So, how did the character come to be called Ariel?

The film’s co-director, Ron Clements, wrote a two-page treatment of The Little Mermaid in January of 1985. His treatment was based on the like-named 19th-century fairy-tale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. In the original story, the mermaid was nameless; in the treatment, Clements referred to the mermaid as Ariel.

Years later, Clements deduced that he’d been influenced by the 1984 film Footloose, which featured a female character named Ariel (who, like the mermaid, was a rebellious teenager).

What are your thoughts on the name Ariel? Do you like it better as a girl name or as a boy name?

P.S. The nine other Disney films released during the “renaissance” period were The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan.

P.P.S. Another mermaid movie from the 1980s that influenced U.S. baby names was Splash…

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Image: Screenshot of The Little Mermaid