Ariel is a Hebrew name meaning "lion of God", used in the Bible as a poetic name for Jerusalem. Shakespeare gave it to the airy spirit in The Tempest, but for American girls the decisive moment was Disney's The Little Mermaid in 1989, whose red-haired heroine made Ariel a feminine favorite. In the United States Ariel peaked at number 132 in 2014 and has since drifted to number 356 in 2025.