Ariel

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Ariel boys named Ariel

Girls and boys called Ariel

years more girls than boys years more boys than girls

Ariel crossed from boys to girls in 1982, having already crossed in 1957, and has stayed there for 44 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 90% girls, and in 2025 it was 61%.

The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 74 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.

By the numbers

Total US births

100,665

Estimated living today

98,000

Median age today

23

Peak year

1991

Best rank

66th

Rank in 2025

355th

First recorded

1892

Girls / boys

78,697 / 21,968

How old the living Ariels are

born that year still alive today

Of the 100,665 babies given the name since 1892, about 98,000 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 38,000 of them are children and 270 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2002 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Hebrew

From Biblical Hebrew אֲרִיאֵל.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Ariels

• Ariel Sharon (1928–2014)Prime Minister of Israel from 2001 to 2006
• Ariel Ortega (born 1974)Argentine footballer
• Ariel Winter (born 1998)American actress
• Ariel Henry (born 1949)Haitian politician and neurosurgeon
• Baby Ariel (born 2000)American social media personality
• Ariel Ibagaza (born 1976)Argentine association football player
• Ariel Lin (born 1982)Taiwanese singer-actress
• Ariel Garcé (born 1979)Argentine association football player

People named Ariel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Ariel is most common

• CA15,630
• TX11,534
• NY9,751
• FL6,133
• IL4,331
• GA3,061
• NJ2,722
• NC2,577
• OH2,493
• AZ2,394

Relative to how many babies each state records, Ariel is most concentrated in Nevada (2.3×), Arizona (2.0×), Florida (1.9×), Alaska (1.8×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1991

The most popular girls’ names the year Ariel peaked:

• Ashley
• Jessica
• Brittany
• Amanda
• Samantha
• Sarah

All the names of 1991

Ariel elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Ariel: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Ariel is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.06% of children were given it – 37 of them.

Ariel: rank by region

In 2024, Ariel was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

In 2024, Ariel was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2025, Ariel was given 2 times or more in 7 regions of Poland.

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Ariel by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Ariel among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Ariel lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 2,627 men called Ariel and 337 women called Ariel were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Men: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 48 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 4 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 20 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 32 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Ariana
• Arianna
• Aria
• Arielle
• Ari
• Ariella
• Ariah
• Ariyah
• Arian
• Aric
• Ariya
• Aries

Ariel against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Ariel vs Ariana
• Ariel vs Arianna
• Ariel vs Aria
• Ariel vs Arielle
• Ariel vs Ari
• Ariel vs Ariella

Compare Ariel with a name of your own