A female name. Ethel seems not to have been an independent name in early times, though Æthelu, corresponding to Old German Athala, occurs in Old English. It seems to have been coined in the 19th C as a pet- form for such names as Etheldred, Ethelburga, Ethelinda (qq.v.). There was a correspondence in Notes and Queries in 1872 about Ethel, which was then very fashionable. Several correspondents imputed its origin to Thackeray in The Newcomes (1853-5); others traced it to C. M. Yonge’s The Daisy Chain (1856), in which the heroine is called Ethel as an abbreviation of her full name Etheldred. No doubt it was the popularity of these almost contemporary novels which caused the spread of the name.

In A. -S., Æthyl, ‘noble,’ never stood alone as a f. name and only rarely (witness Searle) as a m; usually it preceded a noun, the pair forming such names as Ethelgiva, ‘noble gift.’ In ‘the Benedictines’ are no saints named Ethel, but nineteen whose names begin therewith. It is one of the most Anglo-Saxon of all our f. ‘Christians’. Cf. the next six names.

A female name which is said to have become fashionable of late years from being the name of a character in Thackeray’s Newcomes. It is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and signifies ‘noble.’ According to some, however, it is occasionally abbreviated from Ethelind, and perhaps sometimes from Ethelburga, Etheldreda, or Ethelswitha.

Teutonic (feminine) - Noble.

A Teutonic name, meaning: Noble.