Arlene
The girl's name Arlene has been in the national records since 1888, with 143,371 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 1,631st. About 68,000 Arlenes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 71.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Arlene boys named Arlene
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 143,371
- Estimated living today
- 68,000
- Median age today
- 71
- Peak year
- 1934
- Best rank
- 53rd
- Rank in 2025
- 1,631st
- First recorded
- 1888
- Girls / boys
- 143,010 / 361
How old the living Arlenes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 143,371 babies given the name since 1888, about 68,000 are alive — 48 in every hundred. Roughly 2,700 of them are children and 44,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1954 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin a coined name
A nineteenth-century coinage probably based on similar-sounding names such as Charlene and Arlette.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Arlenes
- Arlene Dahl (1925–2021)American actress
- Arlene Foster (born 1970)British politician
- Arlene Francis (1907–2001)American actress and television host
- Arlene Martel (1936–2014)American writer, actress and acting coach
- Arlene Golonka (1936–2021)actress
- Arlene Boxall (born 1961)field hockey player
People named Arlene with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Arlene is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Arlene is most concentrated in North Dakota (3.2×), South Dakota (2.9×), Maine (2.7×), Vermont (2.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1934
The most popular girls’ names the year Arlene peaked:
Arlene elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scotland girls | Arlene | 1,035 | 85th |
| Ireland girls | Arlene | 483 | 157th |
| France girls | Arlene +1 spelling | 435 | 580th |
| England and Wales girls | Arlene | 29 | 4,103rd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Arlene among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Arlene | 37 | 97 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Arlene lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 225 women called Arlene were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palmas, Las | Arlene | 14 | 0.024 | 2,929 |
| Gipuzkoa | Arlene | 7 | 0.019 | 2,146 |
| Madrid | Arlene | 71 | 0.019 | 2,286 |
| Barcelona | Arlene | 48 | 0.016 | 2,652 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Arlene | 7 | 0.013 | 4,377 |
| Zaragoza | Arlene | 6 | 0.012 | 3,085 |
Listed in 10 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 42 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Arlene against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.