Arnold
- Pronunciation
- [Ar-nold]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- The Eagle Rules.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Arnold
Arnold carries a Germanic origin built on two Old High German elements: arn (eagle) and wald (rule, power) — giving the name the compound meaning the eagle rules or eagle power. Eagles have symbolized strength, authority, and vision across Germanic, Roman, and heraldic traditions, making the name's imagery both martial and aristocratic. The name was common among Norman nobility and spread through medieval Europe in forms including Arnaud in French and Arnoldo in Italian and Spanish, eventually settling into the stable English form Arnold that has been in continuous use since the Middle Ages.
Notable bearers include Arnold Palmer (born 1929), an American professional golfer born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, whose father was the head professional and greenkeeper at Latrobe Country Club — a career origin that shaped one of the most celebrated figures in the history of professional golf — and Arnold Schoenberg, an Austrian and later American composer, music theorist, teacher, and painter born on September 13, 1874, in Vienna, who died on July 13, 1951, in Los Angeles, and whose theoretical and compositional work placed him at the center of twentieth-century music history.
In US Social Security records, Arnold first entered the male top-1000 in 1912 and reached its peak rank of #89 in 1916, reflecting the early-twentieth-century fondness for solid Germanic-English names. It maintained a long presence in the rankings through the twentieth century, finally dropping out of the top-1000 in 2004 after accumulating 38,135 top-1000 births. As recently as 2004 it sat at #901. The recorded variant is Arnie, the natural informal short form that softens the name's formal Germanic weight into something approachable and affectionate.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Arnold
US Popularity History (1912–2004)
Annual US births named Arnold by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1924 with 2,014 boys named Arnold (boy rank #95 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2004, ranked #901 for boys (191 US births). That's 806 places below its 1924 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Famous People Named Arnold
2 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Arnold.
- Arnold Palmer — Golfer (1929)
- Arnold Schoenberg was a twentieth century composer who profoundly influenced the music of his time.
Looking for names like Arnold?
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Compare Arnold to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Arnold against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).