Arlen — #1687 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Arlen

The Social Security Administration has registered 7,237 babies named Arlen between 1909 and 2024, spanning 116 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Arlen currently holds the #1687 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1934, when 206 babies received it in a single year. Arlen is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 786 additional births since 1918.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Arlen performed strongest in the 1930s, accumulating 1,648 births during that ten-year window. Across the 13 decades of recorded activity, Arlen shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 500 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Minnesota and Texas. In total, SSA state-level files list Arlen in 32 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Arlen in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 7,237 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.