Arlo is a name of uncertain origin; it is usually traced to Arlo Hill in Edmund Spenser's poem The Faerie Queene, the poet's spelling of the Irish Aherlow, "between two highlands", though some see it as a short form of Carlo. The folk singer Arlo Guthrie kept it alive in America through the 1960s and 70s. Arlo entered the US top 1000 in 2011 and has rocketed from number 501 in 2015 to number 148 in 2025.