Marlo is a variant of Marlow, an English surname and town name from the Old English mere and lafe, meaning "remnants of a lake" or "drained lake"; it also works as a short form of Marlon. Television viewers know it from Marlo Stanfield, the ruthless drug kingpin in The Wire. For boys Marlo has crept upward in the United States, from number 2844 in 2000 to number 1637 in 2023 and number 1720 in 2025.