Arlo

About Arlo

Arlo is an English name with an uncertain origin and a clear two-syllable sound, AR-loh. One proposed source is the fictional Arlo Hill in Edmund Spenser’s poetry. Folk musician Arlo Guthrie and the young dinosaur in Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur give the name very different cultural associations, while recent American use has grown dramatically.

A possible literary landscape

Arlo may have been inspired by Spenser’s Arlo Hill, probably an adaptation of the Irish place name Aherlow. Aherlow has been interpreted as “between two highlands,” but the route from that place to the personal name remains a possibility rather than a settled derivation.

Arlo Hill appears in the Mutabilitie Cantos associated with The Faerie Queene. These cantos were first published in 1609, after Spenser’s death, rather than in the poem’s original 1590 publication.

The setting brings the name into a landscape of myth, nature, and arguments about change. It is a specific literary connection that can be described even though Arlo’s first use as a personal name and its exact meaning remain unresolved.

Arlo Guthrie and American folk music

Arlo Guthrie’s debut album Alice’s Restaurant was released in 1967. Its long talking-blues piece, Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, turns an eventful Thanksgiving story into a satire involving bureaucracy and the military draft.

The recording became one of his signature works and was selected for the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. Its combination of storytelling, humor, and anti-war commentary gave Arlo a prominent place in American folk culture.

Guthrie also recorded City of New Orleans, written by Steve Goodman. His 1972 recording connects the name with another well-known piece of American popular music, this time centered on a train journey rather than an extended spoken narrative.

Arlo in The Good Dinosaur

Pixar’s 2015 film The Good Dinosaur follows an Apatosaurus named Arlo. Its imagined world begins with the premise that the asteroid associated with the dinosaurs’ extinction missed Earth.

Arlo is the youngest to hatch in his family and struggles with fear. His journey brings him together with a human boy named Spot, whose confidence contrasts with Arlo’s uncertainty.

The character gives the name a contemporary connection with family animation. Guthrie’s music and Pixar’s dinosaur belong to quite different generations of entertainment, making Arlo recognizable in more than one cultural setting.

Pronunciation and sound

English Arlo is usually AR-loh, with stress on the first syllable. American speakers generally pronounce the r, while many British accents use a long opening vowel without a sounded r.

The final o is part of the full name, giving it an open ending after the consonant l. Its four-letter spelling and two-syllable rhythm make the complete form brief without requiring a familiar shortening.

American popularity

Only 37 boys were named Arlo in the United States in 2000. The count reached 184 in 2010, then grew much more strongly.

Arlo’s largest count and best rank came in 2024, with 2,490 boys and a rank of number 146. In 2025, 2,443 boys received the name, placing it at number 148.

How popular is Arlo?

In 2025, Arlo ranked #148 among boys in the United States, with 2,443 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for boys in 1899; its largest annual count was 2,490 in 2024. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.