It's a reasonably common name in France (my parents returned many years ago from a trip to Paris with a bowl they'd bought with my name painted on it), but not here in the U.S. - until recently.

Until I was about seven or eight, I'd never heard of anyone else named Arielle (aside from the one in The Tempest, of course). Then my grandma heard about one near them, on Long Island. No more for a long time. In high school, there was an Ariel at my orthodontist. They sometimes got our appointments on the same day, but I don't think I ever met her. In college, I was in an "Intro to Middle Eastern Art" class of about twelve people. One of the others was named Ariel. When she fell off her horse, I got a lot of sympathetic e-mail.

And then...there was The Little Mermaid. It came out around when I finished college. The clerks at the mall, upon seeing my credit card, started asking if I'd been named after the movie. Guess they didn't think I was that old...

Now I run into little kids named Arielle or Ariel (and occasionally Ariella) all over the place. The client for my main project at work just hired someone named Ariel (I haven't met her yet). At the end of January 1997, one of my co-workers named her cat Arielle.

To help everyone keep all of us Ariel(le)s straight, I'm putting this page together <GRIN>. For the most recent list, search AltaVista or Google

Ariel(le)s you may have heard of:

• The spirit Ariel, from The Tempest
• Lori Singer's character Ariel, in Footloose (with Kevin Bacon, for those of you who play The Kevin Bacon Game)
• The Little Mermaid, in the Disney movie, signed her name "Ariel" on the contract with Ursula. Not everyone spells her name the same way, though.
• An "Arielle" in Austria (real name Margrit Wurzer) has a page devoted to this Ariel(le) - to the whole movie, really

*People* who are really named Ariel or Arielle:

• There's Arielle Dombasle, a French actress/director/singer (highly amusing, as I was voted as having the "worst singing" one summer at camp):
  • a fan page at rmit.edu.au
  • her page on Cinemania Online
• Arielle Liora Garfinkel, an engineering student at Columbia University
• Arielle Greenberg, on AOL
• Arielle Patrice, a CS student at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, is another Edgar Allan Poe fan
• Arielle Curtin (any relation to actress Jane???) is a translator originally from New York and speaks French, Spanish, and Chinese in addition to English
• ballroom dancer Arielle Stark, who lives in California, is/was looking for a dance partner. (From the description in her ad, it sounds like we're about the same height and have similar eyes and hair, although I'm definitely heavier - would be interesting to compare pictures!)
• Arielle Caron, who likes the rock group U2
• Teenager Arielle G. Wyman, from Kentucky, has a poem online
• Adoptee Arielle lives in California and recently found her birth family (or at least her French mother)
• (Gail) Ariel(le) Guttman, an astrologer in New Mexico who has taken the domain name arielle.com, is organizing a millenium trip to Greece
• Author-sisters Arielle and Debbie Ford
• A young student in Colorado named Arielle Grier
• Tara (Arielle) Cazaubon, who works at Qualcomm in San Diego and wrote: Hi! My Hebrew name is Arielle.
• Arielle Taylor (near bottom of page), the daughter of one of the moms in the February 1999 Expecting Club
• Arielle Michel Amodai, from France; lives in Israel now
• a translator named Arielle Curtin
• an artist, Arielle Masson, from Mexico; lives in Texas now
• a photographer at The Blake School, Arielle Kaufman
• a kid, Arielle Sobov, who may be an artist or inventor someday
• Dr. David S. Channin, radiologist at Penn State, has a daughter named Arielle Miriam Channin, born Feb. 29, 1996 (Leap Day!) - cute pictures
• Another child named Arielle who has a picture and a short story online (in both English and Japanese)
• an Ariel who went to CTY, but not while I was there (as far as I know)

Some random Ariel(le)s:

• Ask Arielle, a love-and-friendship advice column for teens at Smartgirl.com
• Arielle the Greyhound dog, who wears Frederick's of Hollywood-style underwear
• Ariel, a dachshund rescued from a puppy mill
• Bara Ari-el, an Arabian horse
• 23arielle on WBS
• someone with screen name Arielle on Valentine Drive of Talk City - only a minimal page thus far, with what look to be the default links
• Someone on GeoCities who goes by the name Arielle and makes wallpaper for web pages (and likes Disney movies)
• Cherie plays a character called Arielle on the MUD Discworld
• Anime's Princess Arielle (site is in French)
• A computer in Germany which hosts "the homepage of the Robotics & Process Control Research Group at the University of Kaiserslautern" (cool!)
• Arielle's Amazing Special Effects Studio, aka. Elle, image manipulation software
• a French CD (by a person/group called Arielle) entitled "Toute une vie a une" (1997)
• A hair salon in France called Airelle (note the slight spelling difference). Very fancy web page for a hair salon.
• Jewelry maker Gail Ann Johnson calls herself Arielle (and oddly, looks something like my mom but with blonde hair rather than red). Looks like nice gold and silver jewelry; some is very Art Deco-ish, some Celtic, some Asian.
• Arielle by Meadowcraft, an outdoor furniture arrangement of wrought-iron patio table and chairs
• A very religious, transgendered physician and long-time computer user who now goes by the name Arielle, at least online
• A B&D ad in San Francisco (warning for those who care: her page has partial nudity) for an S&M advocate calling herself Arielle
• Ariel Corp., "a leading supplier of remote access equipment" in New Jersey. You can get their current stock quote from Yahoo.
• An odd-sounding IPO announcement for a New York company called Arielle Corp (sounds like the company won't really exist - ???)
• a doll called "Arielle, the Spring Angel" - No longer here - looking for a new URL for this doll
• Cafe Arielle, a "restaurant and bistro" in Bucks/Hunterdon Counties, PA
• An SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) couple named Duke Logan Ebonwoulfe and Duchess Arielle the Golden were looking for a throne in March '98
• Jumeau Arielle, an antique French porcelain doll with curly, strawberry-blonde hair
• One of the funnier ones shows how common the name has become. You know how 9West and other shoe companies name their shoes? Well, the name had been used for a pretty wedding-type shoe by Peter Fox, but the "Arielle" style has apparently been discontinued - here's his current page of style names
• There are also various adult-oriented sites and people using the name Arielle...

• Along these same lines, there's a site devoted to the name Miranda (our daughter's name).

Site last updated Sunday, 28-Aug-2005 01:08:12 EDT