Arnie
Variant of Arnold, it's a masculine name of Germanic origin meaning "eagle power".
Name Census estimates that about 1,220 living Americans carry the first name Arnie. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 89.8% of registrations being male. The average person named Arnie today is around 58 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Arnie births was 1960 (60 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Arnie. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Arnie with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
1.2K
~ 1 in 280,946 Americans
Peak year
1960
60 babies that year
Average age
58
years old
2024 SSA rank
#6,298
Tracked since 1887
Census
Arnie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,631 people with the first name Arnie, which placed it at #8,784 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#8,784
National first-name rank
People counted
1.6K
1,631 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
58.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Arnie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Arnie is White at 58.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (15.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (13.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Arnie described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Arnie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White58.5% · 954
- Hispanic or Latino15.6% · 254
- Asian and Pacific Islander13.7% · 223
- Black or African American7.8% · 128
- Two or more races2.6% · 42
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.8% · 30
Gender
Gender distribution for Arnie
Arnie leans heavily male at 89.8% of total registrations, but 235 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Arnie as a male name
- Ranked #8,346 in 2024
- 9 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1960 (60 births)
Arnie as a female name
- Ranked #6,298 in 1959
- 5 female births in 1959
- Peak: 1918 (13 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Arnie leans strongly male. 1,487 people counted with this name were male (90.7%), compared with 153 female bearers (9.3%).
Popularity
Arnie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Arnie from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 378 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Arnie by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Arnie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Arnies live
The SSA's state-level files cover 10 states and territories. California, Minnesota, Alabama recorded the most babies named Arnie, while New York, Mississippi, Michigan recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 18 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Arnie
The name Arnie is a diminutive form of the Germanic name Arnold, which is derived from the Old German words "arn" meaning "eagle" and "wald" meaning "ruler" or "bright". The name was popular among the Franks and other Germanic tribes during the Middle Ages.
In the 8th century, there was a bishop named Arnoldus who became the patron saint of brewers, and this helped to popularize the name in Christian Europe. The name was also borne by several medieval abbots and monks, including Arnold of Soissons, a French monk who lived in the 12th century.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Arnie dates back to the 13th century, when an Arnie von Arnstein was mentioned in a German chronicle. In the 14th century, there was an Arnie von Windecken, a German knight and chronicler who served under Emperor Charles IV.
Over the centuries, there have been several notable individuals named Arnie or Arnold. One of the most famous was the German monk and theologian Arnold of Brescia (c. 1090-1155), who was a leading critic of the wealth and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church in the 12th century.
Another prominent figure was the Dutch philosopher and theologian Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669), who was a key figure in the development of occasionalism, a philosophical theory that denied the existence of causal relationships between events.
In the 19th century, there was the German poet and novelist Arnold Schlönbach (1817-1855), who was a member of the Young Germany literary movement. Around the same time, there was also the English writer and critic Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), who is best known for his novels set in the industrial towns of the Midlands.
In the 20th century, one of the most famous people named Arnie was the American actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger (born 1947), who served as the Governor of California from 2003 to 2011. Another well-known Arnie was the American golfer Arnold Palmer (1929-2016), who was one of the greatest and most popular players in the history of the sport.
People
Arnie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Arnie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Arnie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Arnie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,220 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Arnie going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 280,946 US residents.
Is Arnie a common name?
We classify Arnie as "Rare". It ranks above 91.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,309 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Arnie most popular?
The single biggest year for Arnie was 1960, when 60 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Arnie is about 58 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Arnie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,631 people with the name Arnie, or 0.54 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8,784 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Arnie in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Arnie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Arnie leans strongly male. 1,487 people counted with this name were male (90.7%), compared with 153 female bearers (9.3%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Arnie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Arnie is White at 58.5%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (15.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (13.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Arnie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Arnie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 58.5% (954 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Arnie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Arnie a male name?
Yes, 89.8% of people registered as Arnie in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Arnie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Arnie in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Arnie can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Arnie?
You can see how many people share the name Arnie on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.