Orlan
Masculine · “Germanic hrod and land”
In Orlando Furioso a knight flies to the moon to recover the hero's lost wits, and finds them stored there in a bottle, along with everything else humanity has lost: wasted time, unanswered prayers, broken vows. Ariosto published it in 1516 and revised it for sixteen years.
How old is the name Orlan?
Orlan first appears in US birth records in 1898 — 127 years ago. The typical Orlan alive today was born around 1934, making them about 91 years old. About 300 people named Orlan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Orlan most popular?
Orlan peaked in 1898, reaching #1121 nationally. Today it ranks #9714, 8,593 places below that high. See the whole 1898 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Hrodland to Orlan
The story of Orlan
Ariosto took Boiardo's unfinished Orlando Innamorato and continued it, publishing the Furioso in 1516 and expanding it until 1532. It is enormous, comic, and structurally reckless, with dozens of plots abandoned and resumed. Orlando goes mad from unrequited love, tears up the countryside, and is cured when the English knight Astolfo rides the hippogriff to the moon, where everything lost on earth is kept in labeled containers: reputations, gifts given to flatter, unfulfilled intentions, and the wits of the mad. He collects Orlando's in a bottle and brings them back. The moon episode has been imitated and quoted ever since, and the poem supplied plots to Shakespeare, Spenser, Cervantes and Handel. The name Orlando in English owes as much to Ariosto as to the Chanson de Roland.
Meaning
Germanic hrod and land, fame and territory
Orlan is a shortened form of Orlando, the Italian form of Roland, from Germanic Hrodland, joining hrod, fame, to land, territory. Italian exchanged the initial consonants, which is why the French and Italian forms look unrelated. The American peak is 1898.
How the name formed
- Hrodland
- Roland
- Orlando
- Orlan
Related forms: Orlando · Roland · Orlando
Pronouncing Orlan
OR-lun
Two syllables, stress on the first. Orlando has three and is stressed on the second. Orlan and Orland are near-homophones.
Nicknames for Orlan
Moderate
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
- 1898
- Most boys named
- 192131 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1121reached in 1898
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%7 in 2025, from 7
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.
Orlan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Orlando in Italian — related form
- Roland in French — same name
- Orlando in Spanish — related form
Orlans among us
people named Orlan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 244,011 born in 2025 was named Orlan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Orlan sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Orlan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Orlan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Orlando is available as the fuller form.
- Two syllables with a firm first-syllable stress.
- Both Germanic elements have clear meanings.
- Orlando is far commoner and better known.
- It is easily confused with Orland and Arlan.
- The 1898 peak places it deep in the nineteenth century.
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Orlan
Masculine · #9714 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Orlans 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 Orlan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Orlan in 2025?
- Orlan ranks #9714 among US boy names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Orlan?
- About 1 in every 244,011 US boys born in 2025 was named Orlan — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Orlan with classmates?
- Orlan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Orlan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vern#9714 · Abrahm#9714 · Sid#9714 · Hartwell#9714 · Kwan#9714 · Adrean#9714 · Chancey#9714 · Bob#9714
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Orlan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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