Aracely is a Spanish name, a variant of Araceli, from the Latin ara coeli, which means "altar of heaven" or "altar of the sky". It began as a title of the Virgin Mary, after the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, and is used mainly in Mexico and Central America. In the United States Aracely ranked number 915 in 2000, peaked at number 575 in 2003 and has since fallen out of the top 1000, standing at number 1427 in 2025.