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Arlo

Irish or English
"between two hills"
Linda Rosenkrantz
By Linda Rosenkrantz
Updated Mon Jul 14 2025

Arlo Origin and Meaning

The name Arlo is a boy's name of Spanish origin meaning "between two hills".

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.

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 has many possible derivations along with its Irish and English roots. It may be a shortened form of the Italian name Carlo or the Spanish Carlos, and in Basque-speaking regions it is the word for area. In English, 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.

# 146 in the US

Arlo Rank in US Top 1000

# 15 on Nameberry

Arlo Rank in Nameberry Top 1000

Popularity of the name Arlo

20 Names Similar to Arlo

These 20 names were selected by our users that were looking for other names like Arlo.

Famous People Named Arlo

  • 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

The name 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

The name Arlo in Nameberry Blog Posts