Alexandra
Feminine · “Defender of men”
Alexandra is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 245,451 girls against 869 boys since 1880. See Alexandra as a boy name
Alexandra is older than Alexander. A version of the name turns up in Bronze Age Hittite diplomatic correspondence, four hundred years before the Trojan War and nearly a thousand before the conqueror everybody assumes it comes from.
How old is the name Alexandra?
Alexandra first appears in US birth records in 1894 — 131 years ago. The typical Alexandra alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 240,000 people named Alexandra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alexandra most popular?
Alexandra peaked in 1995, reaching #26 nationally. Today it ranks #237, 211 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Where it comes from
From Alexandros to Alexandra
The story of Alexandra
A Hittite treaty names a king of Wilusa called Alaksandu — a Greek-sounding name on the western edge of Anatolia, in a city most scholars now identify with Troy, several centuries before Homer. Whether that man has anything to do with the Alexandros who appears in the Iliad as another name for Paris is one of the better arguments in Bronze Age history and is not settled. What is certain is that the name is very old and was in use around the Aegean long before Macedon. The feminine has its own modern history: the last Russian empress was a German princess called Alix who took Alexandra when she converted, and the name went with the dynasty into the twentieth century and out the other side.
Meaning
Defender of men
The Greek elements are a verb about defending and the word for men. The reading is not disputed. What is disputed is how old the name is, because a form of it appears in records from a civilization that predates classical Greece.
Cultural footprint
Alexandra Daddario (b. 1986) — The White Lotus Emmy nominee
Alexandra David-Néel (b. 1868) — Explorer who snuck into the forbidden city of Lhasa in 1924
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Alexandros
- Alexandra
Related forms: Alejandra · Alessandra · Aleksandra · Aleksandra
Pronouncing Alexandra
al-ig-ZAN-druh
Four syllables with the stress on the third. Every European language stresses it in the same place.
Nicknames for Alexandra
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1894
- Most girls named
- 199210,221 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #26reached in 1995
- Change vs 2022
- −15.3%1,314 in 2025, from 1,552
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Alexandra in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alejandra in Spanish — same name
- Alessandra in Italian — same name
- Aleksandra in Russian — same name
- Aleksandra in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Alexandras among us
people named Alexandra are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,223 born in 2025 was named Alexandra
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Robin test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alexandra's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Robin climbed just as high around 1962, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Robin's path sketches the road Alexandra is walking now.
Alexandra is coming down from a big peak (#26 in 1995). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Alexandra is headed
Alexandra is easing off slowly — about 15% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Alexandra beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alexandra in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is understood in every European language with almost no change of spelling.
- It carries an unusually large set of short forms with very different registers.
- The meaning is settled and strong.
- It is long, and a short form will do most of the work.
- The spelling is recorded for boys as well, though it belongs overwhelmingly to the girls.
- It has been well used for a long time, so she may not be the only one.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Alexandra
Feminine · #237 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alexandras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 240,000 people named Alexandra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Alexandra in 2025?
- Alexandra ranks #237 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,314 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alexandra?
- About 1 in every 1,223 US girls born in 2025 was named Alexandra — 1,314 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alexandra with classmates?
- Alexandra will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alexandra
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lucille#237 · Cataleya#237 · Nyla#236 · Andrea#235 · Camille#240 · Arianna#234 · Maisie#233 · Collins#241
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alexandra? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alexandra and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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