Arnold is a male first name. In very rare cases it is also used for girls.
Arnold is a well-known name in the US, but is still special. It is currently only given to every ten thousandth boy, and therefore ranks at 1464 in the SmartGenius statistics. This means there are 1,463 boys names that are more common, but also tens of thousands that are much rarer. In the entire USA, approximately 96,702 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Arnold. That is 0.03 % of all living Americans.
Appearing throughout the time in the United States, the name Arnold is a staple in the country: Boys have been given the name Arnold for more than 140 years, according to official U.S. naming statistics. Arnold is therefore one of only 442 boys’ names that have been given every year since 1880. Even beyond that, Arnold is a very special name that peaked in popularity some time ago in the 20th century. Placed at #87 Arnold easily made it into the top 100 boys' names of our SmartGenius statistics for male first names and has never been more popular than back in 1916.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Arnold was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
As many as 118 babies were named Arnold in the USA in 2022, ranking it at #1,397 on the list of the most popular boys' names for that year. However, it experienced its lowest point of popularity in 2014, when it was only ranked #1,693 of all male names in our SmartGenius statistics – back then only 81 boys were named Arnold.
The name Arnold may not be in the top rankings of the most popular boys’ names, but it is one of the few male given names, along with only 385 others, that can be found in every single state in the U.S. from Alaska to Florida and from California to New York. Of course, the name occurs more frequently in some states than in others – and Arnold is apparently especially popular in North Dakota. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular men’s names here either, one in 395 men in North Dakota is called Arnold. In total, that’s 1,441 people who feel addressed when the name Arnold is shouted loudly across North Dakota and who ensure that their name makes it to #111 in our SmartGenius ranking of the most common male names in this nice state. If you asked all people in the entire U.S. for their first name, you would hear Arnold as the answer a total of 96,702 times. This places Arnold at #292 in our SmartGenius statistics for the most popular male names in the whole of the USA. This is true for all currently living people across all states and age groups – the recent popularity of the name Arnold as a baby name is, of course, a bit different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter A is a very popular first letter for boys’ names. That’s because 9.0% of all common boys’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letter J is more common for boys' names.
With six letters, the name Arnold is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that if 9.0% of all boys' names start with an A, this initial letter occurs nearly three times as often as all other letters on average. And by the way: Of all the boys' names that start with an A, Anthony is the most common.
If your name is Arnold and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Arnold, you can simply say:
Apple
Rocket
Nut
Orange
Lion
Dinosaur
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Arnold
Arnold
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
A
R
N
O
L
D
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
A
R
N
O
L
D
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Arnold sounds like this:
