Arlöv is the name of a former village (now part of the city of Malmö) in the parish of Burlöv in south-western Skåne in the far south of Sweden. The first element of the name has been etymologised as the genitive Ara of an Old Danish personal name Ari and, later, as the stem of an Old Danish appellative *arth, a cognate of Old West Norse ǫrð ‘what grows, harvest, corn’. Both of these etymologies are problematic since they require conspicuously early deletion of -a- and -th-, respectively, pre-dating the oldest record of the name, Arleue, from around 1120. I suggest instead that Arlöv contains the genitive ār of the Old Danish appellative ā ‘river’, referring to the river Sege å directly adjacent to the original site of the village. The long a of the first element has been shortened by what is known as compound reduction. This etymology is consistent with the earliest recorded occurrences of the name, as well as with the topography of the site. Furthermore, it involves a well-known and frequent appellative with topographical reference.