Arlo
Top 1000
About Arlo
Quirky cool Arlo is now well and truly back. Last year it broke into the US Top 200 boy names and consistently ranks among the most popular boy names on Nameberry. Along with its Irish and English roots, Arlo may be a shortened form of the Italian Carlo or the Spanish Carlos, both forms of Charles,and in Basque-speaking regions it is the word for area.
Arlo is even more popular in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Arlo is also one of the top baby names among Nameberry's visitors from leading US cities.
Once strongly associated with shaggy singer Arlo Guthrie, Arlo has an animated and cheery feel, thanks to its upbeat o ending. It was chosen by Toni Colette for her son in 2011, which brought the name back into the spotlight. Previously, Arlo was in regular use in the first half of the twentieth century—it was Number 667 in 1915, for example, but it had dropped off the charts in 1944.
Arlo was used as a place name, Arlo Hill, by Edmund Spenser in his epic poem The Faerie Queene and is thought to derive from the Celtic word Aherlow, meaning "between two highlands."
A growing number of girls are also named Arlo in the US each year, with a handful more babies of both sexes receiving the Arlow and Arlowe spellings, which take this name more into smart surname territory.
Pronounced AR-loh.
As of October 2026, Arlo ranked #148 in US births in 2025 SSA, peaked at #146 in 2024, Nameberry popularity #9.
Editor's take: The name Arlo is a boy's name of Spanish, English, Italian origin meaning "between two hills".
Popularity & trends
Data table
| Year | US rank | Births | Per million |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | #537 | 518 | 269.7 |
| 2015 | #501 | 579 | 302.1 |
| 2016 | #349 | 977 | 514.8 |
| 2017 | #316 | 1,092 | 590 |
| 2018 | #277 | 1,267 | 697.6 |
| 2019 | #271 | 1,323 | 737.4 |
| 2020 | #220 | 1,700 | 984.9 |
| 2021 | #190 | 1,990 | 1,137.5 |
| 2022 | #169 | 2,220 | 1,271.5 |
| 2023 | #158 | 2,305 | 1,347.5 |
| 2024 | #146 | 2,481 | 1,440 |
| 2025 | #148 | 2,443 | 1,430.3 |
World rankings
Similar names
These 20 names were selected by our users looking for other names like Arlo.
- Rowan
- Milo
- Silas
- August
- Ezra
- Finn
- Jude
- Archer
- Kieren
- Atticus
- Soren
- Theo
- Rory
- Jasper
- Wren
- Judah
- Finley
- Luca
- Leon
- Everett
Arlo on lists
Famous Arlos
- Arlo Davy Guthrie
American singer,songwriter
- Arlo White
English sports commentator
- Arlo Bates
American novelist, poet and journalist
- Arlo Ray Nicholson (b. 2007)
son of singers Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson
- Arlo Kaplinsky (b. 2008)
Son of TV journalist Natasha Kaplinsky
- Arlo Robert Galafassi (b. 2011)
son of actress Toni Collette
- Arlo Schlupp (b. 2014)
son of footballer Jeffrey Schlupp
- Arlo Simpson (b. 2015)
son of singer,songwriter Charlie Simpson
- Arlo Walcott (b. 2016)
son of footballer Theo Walcott
- Arlo Carroll (b. 2016)
son of footballer Andy Carroll and reality TV personality Billi Mucklow
- Arlo Dagg (b. 2017)
son of rugby footballer Israel Dagg
- Arlo Gale Coleman (b. 2017)
son of American singer,songwriter and musician Holly Williams
- Arló Ó Caireal (character played by Michael Fassbender in Irish film Kneecap
Character played by Michael Fassbender from 2024 film Kneecap
Arlo in pop culture
- Arlo Givens
Raylan's dad on TV's "Justified"
- Arlo Higgins
character on TV's "Sliders"
- Arlo Day
main character in comic strip "Arlo and Janis" by Jimmy Johnson
- Arlo Pear
character in film "Moving"
- Arlo Dean
character British soap "Family Affairs"
- Arlo
character in film "Orange County"
- Arlo Glass
character on TV's "24"
- Arlo Bunch
character in "The Sims 3" computer game
- Arlo
main character in Pixar's "The Good Dinosaur"
- Arlo Barth
character on TV's "Kirstie"
- Arlo
a yellow lab owned by Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn Nine,Nine
- Arlo Thacker
character in the second campaign of the podcast "The Adventure Zone"
- Arlo
a character in the game Warframe