Humanverse

Arlette vs Arline

American parents have registered 17,626 Arlines since 1880, against 8,109 Arlettes. But in 2025 it was Arlette that was commoner, 600 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Arlette against Arline, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Arlette Arline

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 141 years in which either name was published, Arline for 85 years and Arlette for 56 years. The lead changed hands 11 times.

Side by side

  Arlette Arline
Total US births 8,10917,626
Most in one year 600677
Babies in 2025 600under 5
Estimated living today 7,3003,800
Median age today 1279
Peak year 20251924
Best rank 494th girls253rd girls
Rank in 2025 494thunranked
First recorded 19131883
Girls / boys 8,109 / 017,590 / 36

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Arlines alive today are over 79; half the Arlettes are over 12. That is 67 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Arlette Arline
France 78,57035

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Arlette and Arline.