Arnold
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) From the Germanic personal name meaning literally ‘eagle-rule’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɑɹnəld/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Arnold is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Switzerland it is the 58th most common surname.
- CHSwitzerland1 in 974(measured from records)
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.8K
- DEGermany≈1 in 2K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #637 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 577 (measured from records)
- 1 in 974 (inferred from the name graph)
≈670,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
(i) From the Germanic personal name meaning literally ‘eagle-rule’. (ii) Person from Arnold, Nottinghamshire/Yorkshire, a place-name meaning ‘corner of land where eagles are seen’. (iii) Jewish name probably adopted from the German personal name.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Arnold 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈670,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Arnold | 30 |
| US United States | #190 | 138,893 | 1 in 2.4K | 139K | Arnold | 577 |
| DE Germany | #81 | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Arnold | 229 |
| GB United Kingdom | #171 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Arnold | 290 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.4K | — | Arnold | 28 |
| CH Switzerland | #58 | 8,624 | 1 in 974 | 8.6K | Arnold | 103 |
| IE Ireland | #153 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Arnold | 63 |
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 — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Arnold is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Germanic ‘eagle power’; used in Ireland to anglicise Ardal.
as a nameIrish first names
In French, Germanic, from elements meaning 'eagle' and 'power/ruler'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In German, from Germanic *arn- 'eagle' + *wald- 'rule'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In English, Anglicised surname; treated here as related to Welsh Arnallt. Earliest citation not given on this page.
as a nameWelsh Surnames
In German, From the Rufname Arnold; plate shows vowel/length variation in forms built on the same first element.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Matthew Arnoldb. 1822GBBritish poet and cultural critic (1822–1888)
- Edward Arnoldb. 1890USAmerican actor (1890-1956)
- Malcolm Arnoldb. 1921GBEnglish composer and conductor (1921–2006)
- Vladimir Arnoldb. 1937RURussian mathematician who studied integrable systems and differential equations (1937–2010)
- Frances Arnoldb. 1956USNobel prize winning US scientist and engineer (born 1956)
- Tom Arnoldb. 1959USAmerican stand-up comedian and actor (born 1959)
- Andrea Arnoldb. 1961GBEnglish film director and actress
- David Arnoldb. 1962GBBritish film composer
- Kristi Noemb. 1971USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (born 1971)
- Monicab. 1980USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer and rapper (born 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 142 sources across 68 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 139K | #201 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 136K | #187 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 132K | #214 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 8.6K | #42 |
Reference works 9
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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
- Where does the name Arnold come from?
- (i) From the Germanic personal name meaning literally ‘eagle-rule’. (ii) Person from Arnold, Nottinghamshire/Yorkshire, a place-name meaning ‘corner of land where eagles are seen’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What does the name Arnold mean?
- Recorded meaning: (i) From the Germanic personal name meaning literally ‘eagle-rule’.
- What are other forms of the name Arnold?
- In the etymology graph, Arndt, Arend and Arnau are forms of the same name in other languages; Arn is a recorded short or pet form.
- In which country does Arnold have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 669 thousand people named Arnold in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled arnold.
- Where is Arnold most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Arnold is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 974 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Arnold?
- In the United States, the national register counted 138,893 people named Arnold in 2010, about 1 in 2.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Arnold compared with other names?
- In Switzerland, Arnold is the 58th most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Arnold?
- A machine transcription gives /ɑɹnəld/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Arnold?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/arnoldThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
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, “Arnold” — the 58th most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.