Arielle

Arielle slips in with a French accent and biblical lineage. The Hebrew Ariel meant "lion of God," a poetic name for Jerusalem in Isaiah and, later, the mischievous spirit of Shakespeare's Tempest. The double-L ending is the francophone feminine, giving the name a satin finish the original doesn't have. It rose in the late 1980s alongside Disney's Little Mermaid without being swallowed by it, and has held steady on the American charts ever since, currently at 497. Three syllables with a lifted final note, Arielle feels both spiritual and a little theatrical, equally at home in a synagogue and a conservatory.