US births per decade — source: Social Security Administration
Ethel is predominantly a female name in the United States, and has declined in use since the 1950s. There are approximately 15,000 people named Ethel in the US today.
The name Ethel's root letters are ETH.
The letter E is the symbol of emotional expressiveness and the TH phoneme is the essence of all things thoughtful, thankful, therapeutic, theological, theistic and thorough. Unsurprisingly, when they come together to form the ETH root they form thebasis for words dealing with humankind’s transcendental issues: death, ethics, empathy, ethereal, freethinking, health, weather, and ether (the mysterious substance once believed to fill the universe).
Perhaps this is why ETH names evoke such an impression of inscrutability. The truth is, that although you never really know what to expect from these inscrutable souls, you can rest assured that they know exactly who they are and what they’re trying to achieve from their lives. These are no-nonsense people; the types that you’d want to carefully pick your battles with… or put your weapons down altogether.
At work Ethels are the people who get handed those important but annoying projects; for everyone knows that they’re going to get the job done with mechanical efficiency. Ethels approach their personal lives in the same perfunctory manner and tend to be very analytical when determining the motivations of other people. The worst crimes in the ETH's book are indecision and self-pity and they’re unlikely to be sympathetic towards someone who’s wallowing in self-imposed misery.
One can pretty safely rule out flexibility as one of the ETH’s strong points but this doesn’t mean they’re controlling or heavy-handed. They’re quite willing to accept others as they are, as long as there’s a genuine attempt to self-improvement. At the most, ETH s will give you some well-meaning advice, which even if not taken, will result in no ill feelings.
Being married to Ethels can be frustrating for partners who expect to maintain their independence, for Ethels are big on teamwork and always expect to have everyone included in their plans. And since they like to plan things in minute detail you’ll have every day and night of your vacation carefully coordinated. The biggest complaint about the ETH personality is their tendency to micro-manage their relationships, but once people realize that this is only the Ethels’ way of showing affection and concern most are quite willing to let the capable ETH maintain control.
