Ethal
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Ethal has been given to 70 babies in the U.S. since 1900. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1925, with 9 recorded.
Babies named Ethal, 1929
1 in 438,000
Ethal over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Ethal?
Ethal had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1929, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1929
- 1 in 438,000
- 5 of 2,192,103 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 223,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1929
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 303,891 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Ethal sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1929 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 303,891 children born in 1929 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ethal. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Ethals were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Ethal was born before 1922 — so the typical Ethal is around 103 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 67.1% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 84.3%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 0
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 67.1% of all recorded uses (47).
Is Ethal rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1925 (9)
- Years since peak
- 100
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 44.1% average annual change
Spellings of Ethal
Ethal is not the most common spelling — Ethel is, with 74.5% against Ethal's 0.02%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Ethal around the world
Where Ethal ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales2024–2024#5,892in 2024
- South Australia2007–2007#803in 2007
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Ethal by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Ethal
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Ethal
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.