Arlet
Feminine
Arlet is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 3,346 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Two syllables, six letters, and nothing silent in them — Arlet lands cleanly in either English or Spanish. It belongs to the family of French Arlette, a name Normandy has carried since the Middle Ages, and it has found a second home in Catalan and in Spanish-speaking households across the Americas.
How old is the name Arlet?
Arlet first appears in US birth records in 1918 — 107 years ago. The typical Arlet is a kid of about 3 — this name's wave is very recent. About 3,300 people named Arlet are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Arlet most popular?
Arlet peaked in 2023, reaching #603 nationally. Today it ranks #642, 39 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Arlet appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Herleva to Arlet
The story of Arlet
The older half of the story is Norman: Herleva, a name recorded in eleventh-century Normandy, softened over the centuries into the French Arlette. Arlette stayed in steady French use into the twentieth century and traveled outward from there, giving Italian Arletta, Portuguese Arlete and the Spanish spellings Arlet and Arleth, which drop the French double consonant and final -e. In Catalonia, Arlet took hold on its own terms as a girls' name in recent decades. The American record shows the same shape — thin and scattered for most of a century, then a distinct recent wave, strongest in California, Texas and New York.
Meaningscholars disagree
Most often traced to Germanic name elements through French Arlette; no single translation is agreed
The main reading takes Arlet as a form of French Arlette, itself a diminutive of the medieval Norman name Herleva, built from Old Germanic elements usually read as 'nobleman' or 'army'. A competing view treats the -et(te) ending as the ordinary French diminutive suffix attached to a shortened Charl-/Carl- name, which would make it a cousin of Charlotte and Carlota rather than a descendant of Herleva.
How the name formed
- Herleva
- Arlette
- Arlet
Related forms: Arlette · Arlet · Arleth · Arlete · Arletta · Arletta
Pronouncing Arlet
ar-LET
Spanish and Catalan speakers stress the second syllable: ar-LET. English speakers often move the stress forward to AR-let, which is the same pattern that turns Michelle into MISH-elle in casual American speech. Both are in real use, and families usually settle on one early.
Nicknames for Arlet
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1918
- Most girls named
- 2023493 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #603reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- +14.5%450 in 2025, from 393
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Arlet in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Arlette in French — same name
- Arlet in Catalan — same name
- Arleth in Spanish — spelling variant
- Arlete in Portuguese — same name
- Arletta in Italian — related form
- Arletta in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Arlets among us
people named Arlet are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,572 born in 2025 was named Arlet
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Arlet
- #642
- Arlet on the 2025 chart
- #424
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Arlet went to 450 girls in 2025, but Arlett is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 672, which makes it the 424th most-given girls’ name of the year — 218 places above the chart.
- Arlet450
- Arlett222
About 1 girl in 2,392 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 3,572 for Arlet itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Damaris test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Arlet's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Damaris climbed just as high around 2006, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Damaris's path sketches the road Arlet is walking now.
Arlet is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Arlet is headed
Arlet is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 63% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Arlet beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Arlet in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds in both English and Spanish — no silent letters, no double consonants to remember.
- Part of a documented international family: Arlette, Arleth, Arlete, Arletta, so relatives abroad will recognize it.
- Short enough to survive a form field, with Ari and Leti available as ready-made short forms.
- Its recent rise means it is current without being widespread — a child is unlikely to share it in a classroom.
- The stress is genuinely unsettled between ar-LET and AR-let. Teachers and receptionists will guess, and she will correct them for life — a small, permanent chore rather than a real problem.
- Arleth, Arlett and Arlette all exist alongside it, so expect to spell it out and to receive mail with an extra letter on the end.
- Said quickly in English, it can be heard as Scarlett minus the S, or as Arlene by ears expecting the older name.
- The current wave is very new, so most people carrying this name in the US right now are small children. It reads clearly as a name of this moment rather than an inherited one.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Arlet
Feminine · #642 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Arlets are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,300 people named Arlet are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Arlet?
- Arlet is the most-used spelling in US records — 450 of the 672 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Arlett.
- How popular is the name Arlet in 2025?
- Arlet ranks #642 among US girl names in 2025, with 450 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Arlet?
- About 1 in every 3,572 US girls born in 2025 was named Arlet — 450 in all.
- Will my child share the name Arlet with classmates?
- Arlet will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Arlet
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ellianna#642 · Lyric#640 · Aya#644 · Violeta#640 · Zariyah#645 · Rhea#639 · Katie#646 · Azaria#638
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Arlet? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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