Arlis
Feminine
Arlis is given to both — 797 girls and 1,972 boys since 1880. See Arlis as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Arlis is a short American name recorded for boys and girls alike, and it sits one letter away from an older spelling and one syllable away from a city in Provence that was, for a while, the capital of more or less everything.
How old is the name Arlis?
Arlis first appears in US birth records in 1910 — 115 years ago. The typical Arlis alive today was born around 1938, making them about 87 years old. About 300 people named Arlis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Arlis most popular?
Arlis peaked in 1935, reaching #1162 nationally. See the whole 1935 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Arlis
Arles sits on the Rhône in southern France and it has been important more times than most cities manage. The Romans made it a colony for veterans and then, for a period, effectively the administrative capital of the western empire: it has an amphitheater that still holds events and an underground forum nobody is quite done excavating. Later it gave its name to a whole kingdom, the Kingdom of Arles, which covered Provence and Burgundy and much of what is now western Switzerland and which almost no one outside a history seminar has heard of. Later still, Van Gogh went there for the light and produced a painting a day. Arlis is not named for it. But it is a good reminder that a place can be the center of the world twice and end up as a pleasant town with a train station.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No origin has been documented. The name may come from an English surname, may be a build on a free front syllable, and may have been arrived at more than once. The record holds both this spelling and the doubled one and explains neither.
Pronouncing Arlis
AR-liss
Two syllables with the stress in front. One s or two makes no audible difference at all.
Nicknames for Arlis
Limited
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
- 1910
- Most girls named
- 193537 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1162reached in 1935
- Change vs 1964
- −16.7%5 in 2008, from 6
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.
Arliss among us
people named Arlis are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Arlis sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is read correctly at first sight and never needs spelling out.
- It is recorded for boys and for girls, so it leaves a question open rather than closing it.
- Arlie comes off it as a short form without any work.
- The doubled spelling is also in use, so the name will be written both ways by other people for life.
- This spelling goes mostly to boys but is recorded for girls too, and forms will occasionally guess wrong.
- No origin is documented, so the meaning question has nothing settled to answer with.
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Arlis
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Arliss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Arlis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Arlis in 2025?
- Arlis is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Arlis with classmates?
- Arlis will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More A names
The most-given names starting with A, all years combined.
Anna#107 · Ashley#164 · Amanda#493 · Amy#257 · Angela#408 · Alice#65 · Ann#1076 · Andrea#235
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Arlis? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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