If it is so false, and base, and hollow, this great world […] why does Ethel Newcome cling to it? Will you be fairer, dear, with any other name than your own?

Charmian Lyle had given herself her first name at the age of sixteen, upon encountering it in an English novel. Her baptismal name was Ethel. When her husband Walter was extremely angry with her, he called her Ethel.
Charmian, she thought, suited her much better. She didn't think she looked, felt, or sounded like Ethel. Nor like her middle name, which she really detested, Edna.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:ethel.

Ethel

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Noun

Name

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