In the realm of names, who is the fairest of them all—and why?

The Disney Princesses are a cultural powerhouse. They stand together as a team, launching movies, spinning dreams and selling merchandise. But in the realm of baby names, the princesses are far from equal. Some have inspired waves of namesakes, while others have been ignored.

Who among them is the baby name queen? I decided to find out.

Ground Rules

I opted for an inclusive definition of “Disney Princess.” The 13 official members of the Disney Princess™ entertainment franchise qualified, along with any other main character of a Disney film who is a princess. (Confusingly, some iconic princess characters, like Elsa and Anna of Frozen, are not official Princesses™. And some of the official Princesses™, like Mulan, are not actually princess characters. Don’t shoot the messenger.)

The 19 contenders vying for the baby name crown:

Anna (Frozen)
Ariel (The Little Mermaid)
Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)
Belle (Beauty and the Beast)
Cinderella (Cinderella)
Eilonwy (The Black Cauldron)
Elsa (Frozen)
Giselle (Enchanted)
Jasmine (Aladdin)
Kida (Atlantis)
Merida (Brave)
Moana (Moana)
Mulan (Mulan)
Pocahontas (Pocahontas)
Rapunzel (Tangled)
Raya (Raya and the Last Dragon)
Snow (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)
Tiana (The Princess and the Frog)
Vanellope (Wreck-It Ralph)

To ensure an even playing field, I measured the popularity change of each name from a baseline set one year before each princess’s movie came out. That allowed a direct comparison across time between a popular classic like Anna and an inventive name like Kida.

Seldom have the name stats spoken so clearly. One Disney princess name towers over all the others: Ariel, the Little Mermaid.

Why Ariel?

In the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the Little Mermaid was unnamed. Disney had free reign to choose a name that would shape the character’s identity. If you focus on name origins, Ariel seems an unlikely choice: a biblical male name meaning “lion of God.” Name style and impact aren’t about etymology, though. They’re more about cultural associations and sound.

The name Ariel has a liquid flow, as befits a mermaid. It also sounds like the word aerial (“existing in the air”), as befits the character’s dreams. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, it is the name of a bound spirit who longs for freedom. On the fashion front, at the time of the movie’s release Ariel was an uncommon but not unfamiliar name just starting to rise. Bullseye on all counts.

The Little Mermaid hit theaters in 1989, the baby-name era of Jessica and Brittany. Ariel stood out in an appealing way, and was a harbinger of the upcoming era of liquid names. Better yet, the character Ariel was a mermaid. An attractive young woman with supernatural powers has been one of the most reliable recipes for a hit name, from Bewitched’s Samantha to Game of Thrones’ Khaleesi.

The right character with the right name. End of story? Not quite. One of the biggest factors in Ariel’s success may have been the year 1989 itself.

Rolling Back the Clock

Little Mermaid launched the popular rebirth of Disney animation. At the time, Disney Princesses were not yet a collective franchise and animation itself was an afterthought in theaters. Only one other American animated film was released in 1989 (vs. nine releases last year). What’s more, it was the height of the VHS video era, so Ariel immediately took up residence in family homes.

In baby names, 1989 was an in-between moment. The post-‘60s era of diverse, creative names was fully entrenched, meaning American parents were eager for fresh name ideas. Yet it was before the Internet age and the splintering of American media, so pop-culture attention was still highly concentrated. And critically, national baby name statistics didn’t exist yet. Without rankings, without Googling, a name like Ariel could hit hard and every family could feel like it was their own idea.

The Little Mermaid was perfectly positioned to launch any fashion-forward name, even one that wasn’t attached to a beautiful supernatural heroine. As evidence, I offer a name attached to a crustacean. Specifically, Ariel’s crab friend, Sebastian. Take a look at what happened to that name after the movie.

Ariel made the bigger initial splash, but it was Sebastian who really had…legs.

Disney keeps introducing new princesses. Raya, of 2020’s Raya and the Last Dragon, is the first since Ariel to spark three straight years of popularity gains. But any future princess who hopes to claim Ariel’s baby name throne will be facing tough odds. The mermaid had style, magic, and history on her side.

With thanks to Eve Wattenberg for graphs, including careful color selection to avoid the “princess Stroop effect.”