Ethel

Ethel is an Old English word meaning "noble", frequently attested in Anglo-Saxon names. "Ethel" is derived from æthel, also spelled aethel and ethel. In Anglo-Saxon times it was a common first element in names e.g. "Ethelbert", "Etheldreda". The use of the element "Ethel" as an independent name is modern probably being initiated in the mid-19th century due to the name's being borne by characters in novels by W. M. Thackeray (The Newcomes - 1855) and Charlotte Mary Yonge (The Daisy Chain whose heroine Ethel's full name is Etheldred - 1856); the actress Ethel Barrymore - born 1879 - was named after The Newcomes character. Notes & Queries published correspondence about the name Ethel in 1872 because it was in fashion. Ethel's popularity increased during the first decades of the twentieth century to decline abruptly by the century's mid-point.

Ethel may mean:

• the Anglo-Saxon Odal (rune)
• Œ, a letter formed from a ligature of o and e

Music

• Ethel (string quartet)
• Ethel the Frog (band), a British heavy metal band from the late 1970s
• Ethel (XM), an XM satellite radio channel

Locations

• Ethel, Ontario, Canada
• Ethel, Mississippi, USA
• Ethel, Missouri, USA
• Ethel, Washington, USA

People

• Ethel Percy Andrus (1884–1967), educator and founder of AARP
• Ethel Barrymore (1879–1959), American stage and screen actress
• Ethel D. Allen (1929-1981), the first African-American woman to serve on Philadelphia City Council
• Ethel Catherwood (1908–1987), high jump gold medalist in the 1928 Olympics
• Ethel Clayton (1882–1966), American silent film actress
• Ethel Hays (1892–1989), American cartoonist and illustrator
• Ethel Kennedy (born 1928), widow of Robert F. Kennedy
• Ethel MacDonald (1909–1960), Scottish anarchist, activist and propagandist
• Ethel Merman (1908–1984), American actress and singer
• Ethel L. Payne (1911–1991), African American journalist
• Ethel Roosevelt Derby (1891–1977), younger daughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1915–1953), American executed for espionage
• Ethel Schwabacher (1903–1984), American abstract expressionist painter
• Ethel Shannon (1898–1951), American silent film actress
• Ethel Smith (organist) (1910–1996)
• Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), English composer and women's suffrage leader
• Ethel Turner (1872–1958), Australian novelist and children's writer
• Ethel Lilian Voynich (1864–1960), English novelist and musician
• Ethel Waters (1896–1977), American blues and jazz vocalist and actress

Fictional characters

• Big Ethel, from Archie Comics
• Ethel Mertz, from the television program I Love Lucy
• Ethel Skinner, in the British soap opera EastEnders
• Ethel Hallow, from The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy
• Eth of The Glums on Take It From Here
• Ethel Mertz, a Richard Christy character from The Howard Stern Show

See also

• Odal (disambiguation)
• Aetheling