Orland
Masculine · “famous land”
Orland is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 2,081 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
The final o is what makes the name Italian, and Orland has dropped it. What remains reads as an English surname or a Californian town, and the connection to the paladin who dies at the pass — the one the whole tradition is built around — is no longer visible at all.
How old is the name Orland?
Orland first appears in US birth records in 1885 — 140 years ago. The typical Orland alive today was born around 1928, making them about 97 years old. About 500 people named Orland are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Orland most popular?
Orland peaked in 1922, reaching #686 nationally. See the whole 1922 chart.
Where it comes from
From Hrodland to Orland
The story of Orland
The poem that made the name famous is built on almost nothing. What happened was that Charlemagne's rearguard was ambushed in a Pyrenean pass on the way home from a fairly unsuccessful campaign, and a warden of the marches was among the dead. Three centuries later a poet turned that into an epic: the ambushers became a vast Saracen army, the warden became the greatest knight in Christendom, and his refusal to blow his horn for help until it was far too late became the most famous act of pride in medieval literature. The historical footnote is four lines in a chronicle. The poem is four thousand.
Meaning
famous land
Two Germanic elements, the first meaning renown and the second land or territory. The Italian form moved a consonant; the sense traveled through unchanged and is not in dispute.
How the name formed
- Hrodland
- Roland
- Orlando
- Orland
Related forms: Orlando · Roland · Roldán
Pronouncing Orland
OR-lund
Two syllables with the stress at the front and the second reduced. The Italian form puts three syllables in and moves the weight to the middle.
Nicknames for Orland
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
- 1885
- Most boys named
- 192290 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #686reached in 1922
- Change vs 2020
- +20.0%6 in 2023, from 5
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.
Orland in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Orlando in Italian — same name
- Roland in French — same name
- Roldán in Spanish — same name
Orlands among us
people named Orland 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
Orland 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 shorter and plainer than the Italian form without losing anything audible.
- The spelling causes no trouble and never needs repeating.
- It reaches back to one of the oldest stories in European literature.
- Orlando is far commoner and this form will be extended to it constantly.
- It reads as a place name in America before it reads as a person.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
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What they receive
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Orland
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Orlands are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Orland are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Orland in 2025?
- Orland is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Orland with classmates?
- Orland will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More O names
The most-given names starting with O, all years combined.
Oliver#3 · Owen#31 · Oscar#223 · Omar#260 · Otis#652 · Orlando#871 · Otto#277 · Orville#6143
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Orland? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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