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.^[1] 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 (formerly American Association of Retired Persons)
• Ethel Barrymore (1879–1959), American stage and screen actress
• 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 syndicated cartoonist and children's book illustrator
• Ethel Skakel Kennedy (born 1928), widow of Robert F. Kennedy
• Ethel MacDonald (1909—1960), Scottish anarchist and activist, propagandist during the Spanish Civil War
• 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 a leader of the women's suffrage movement
• Ethel Turner (1872–1958), Australian novelist and children's writer
• Ethel Lilian Voynich (1864–1960), English novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes
• Ethel Waters (1896–1977), American blues and jazz vocalist and actress

Fictional characters

• "Big" Ethel Muggs, 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

See also

• Odal (disambiguation)
• Aetheling

References