Arlen

given name · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Arlen is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: an alteration of the German surname Erlen.

rarermore common
  • PHPhilippines≈1 in 17K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CACanada≈1 in 56K
  • USUnited States1 in 3.9Kas Arlene

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Arlen itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

85,381 named Arlene, 2020

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
339 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 15K (inferred from the name graph)

Costa Rica

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ArlenLatin(measured from records)
АрленCyrillic(measured from records)

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

an alteration of the German surname Erlen.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Where in the world(measured from records)

Arlen counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Arlen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States85,381as Arlene1 in 3.9K85KArlen339
BR Brazil16,072as Arlene1 in 13K18K—2
PH Philippines≈6,300 est.≈1 in 17K—Arlen38
IT Italy≈740 est.≈1 in 85K5Arlen8
CA Canada≈670 est.≈1 in 56K2Arlen93
CR Costa Rica3431 in 15K343——
GY Guyana276as Arlene1 in 2.7K276—2

85,381 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling arlene. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Arlen is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nicaragua, Mexico, United States, Philippines

    Also written Arlén, Arlèn, Årlên, Ärlën, Arlën

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Arlén, Árlen, Arlèn

  • French given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Burkina Faso, Philippines

    Also written Arlèn, Árlen

  • Indonesian given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, United States

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Ârlên

48 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1920194019601980Arlen Specter, b. 1930Clarence Arlen Beam, b. 1930Arlen Erdahl, b. 1931Arlen F. Gregorio, b. 1931Bucky Bockhorn, b. 1933Arlen Blyum, b. 1933Arlen Ness, b. 1939Gary Kildall, b. 1942Arlen Siu, b. 1955Arlen Escarpeta, b. 1980

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 65 sources across 32 countries.

Official registers attesting Arlen
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020615#38,716
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000465#43,708
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010379#54,418

Reference works 5

  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Arlen mean, and where does it come from?
an alteration of the German surname Erlen. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
Is Arlen a male or female name?
Arlen is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
In which country does Arlen have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 85 thousand people named Arlene, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Arlen most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Arlen is densest in Costa Rica — about 1 in 15 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Arlen?
In Costa Rica, the national register counted 343 people named Arlen, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Arlen?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/arlen

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Arlen”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Arlen parses inside a full name →