Orlando
Masculine · “Renowned land”
Orlando is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 49,454 boys against 242 girls since 1880.
Orlando is the Italian road out of Roland — the paladin of Charlemagne whose horn sounds through the medieval Chanson de Roland, renamed by Italian poets who liked the vowel at the front. Ariosto gave him a whole epic in Orlando Furioso in 1516, Shakespeare gave the name to the hero of As You Like It, and Virginia Woolf gave it to a character who lives four centuries. Four syllables in English, and every one of them lands.
How old is the name Orlando?
Orlando was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Orlando alive today was born around 1987, making them about 38 years old. About 42,000 people named Orlando are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Orlando most popular?
Orlando peaked in 1975, reaching #246 nationally. Today it ranks #871, 625 places below that high. See the whole 1975 chart.
Orlando appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Hrodland to Orlando
The story of Orlando
The name begins in Germanic Europe as Hrodland and becomes famous through one man: the commander of Charlemagne's rearguard, killed at Roncevaux in 778 and turned into the hero of the eleventh-century Chanson de Roland. Italy took the story to heart and reshaped the name, so the knight who is Roland in French becomes Orlando in Boiardo and then in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, the great romance epic of 1516. Handel set that poem as an opera; Shakespeare, working in the same borrowed-Italian air, named the lover in As You Like It Orlando. From Italy the form spread through Spanish and Portuguese, which is a large part of why it is at home today across Texas, California and Florida.
Meaning
Renowned land, from 'fame' and 'land'
The Germanic elements behind Roland are hruod, 'fame, glory', and land. Read together they are usually given as 'famous land' or 'renowned throughout the land'. Orlando is what Italian did to Rolando, moving the l and pulling the vowel to the front.
How the name formed
- Hrodland
- Roland
- Rolando
- Orlando
Related forms: Roland · Roland · Rolando · Roeland · Loránd · Roland
Pronouncing Orlando
or-LAN-doh
Stress on the middle syllable in English. In Spanish and Italian the middle vowel is broader — or-LAHN-do — and the r is tapped. Both readings are standard, and neither needs correcting.
Nicknames for Orlando
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 1987877 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #246reached in 1975
- Change vs 2022
- −10.4%275 in 2025, from 307
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.
Orlando in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Roland in French — same name
- Roland in German — same name
- Rolando in Spanish — related form
- Roeland in Dutch — related form
- Loránd in Hungarian — related form
- Roland in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Orlandos among us
people named Orlando are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 6,211 born in 2025 was named Orlando
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Sheldon test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Orlando's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sheldon climbed just as high around 1936, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sheldon's path sketches the road Orlando is walking now.
Orlando 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
Where Orlando is headed
Orlando should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Orlando beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Orlando in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds, and already familiar to Americans from the Florida city — nobody will ask you to repeat it or spell it out.
- Works unchanged in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, with Roland and Rolando as close relatives in French, German and Dutch.
- A documented line running from the eighth-century Frankish knight through Ariosto, Handel and Shakespeare to the present day.
- Real short forms already in use — Lando, Orly — so the four syllables can shrink when a child wants them to.
- Steady rather than fashionable: represented in every recent generation without ever crowding a classroom.
- It shares its spelling with a major Florida city and its theme parks, so expect the occasional joke or the question of whether the child was named after the place.
- Four syllables ending in -o sit awkwardly against some surnames, especially short ones ending in a vowel. Say the full name aloud a few times before deciding.
- The English and Spanish pronunciations differ in the middle vowel, and a bilingual family will hear both. That is manageable — plenty of Orlandos answer comfortably to either.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Orlando to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Orlando
Masculine · #871 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Orlandos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 42,000 people named Orlando are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Orlando in 2025?
- Orlando ranks #871 among US boy names in 2025, with 275 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Orlando?
- About 1 in every 6,211 US boys born in 2025 was named Orlando — 275 in all.
- Will my child share the name Orlando with classmates?
- Orlando will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Orlando
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aryan#871 · Adler#871 · Joey#874 · Abner#874 · Coast#874 · Jedidiah#874 · Alessio#867 · Edison#867
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Orlando? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Orlando and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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