Five ships of the United States Navy have been named ''Ariel'', after the sprite Ariel (Shakespeare), Ariel in William Shakespeare's play ''The Tempest (play), The Tempest''. * , a 16-gun sloop-of-war, originally the Royal Navy's HMS ''Ariel'' captured by the French in 1779, lent to the Americans in 1780, and returned to the French the next year. * , a schooner launched on Lake Erie in 1813 and active in operations that year. * , was a schooner built in Baltimore as ''Fourth of July''. The US Navy commissioned her as USS ''Fourth of July'' in May 1831. She was renamed ''Ariel'' on 9 June. She was decommissioned on 31 December 1832 and sold on 3 January 1833. * , schooner captured in the American Civil War and used by the Navy until 1865. * , a passenger and refrigerated cargo liner leased from the United Fruit Company and used from 1942 to 1946.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ariel United States Navy ship names