Alexis
Feminine · “defender”
Alexis is given to both — 344,557 girls and 68,075 boys since 1880. See Alexis as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Alexis has been in continuous use since the Greek-speaking world of late antiquity, carried by Byzantine emperors and by a fifth-century saint venerated from Rome to Constantinople. The sound is unhurried — three syllables that land in the middle, then finish on a soft hiss — and it shortens easily in almost every language it has entered.
How old is the name Alexis?
Alexis first appears in US birth records in 1931 — 94 years ago. The typical Alexis alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 339,000 people named Alexis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alexis most popular?
Alexis peaked in 1999, reaching #3 nationally. Today it ranks #554, 551 places below that high. See the whole 1999 chart.
Where it comes from
From Alexios to Alexis
The story of Alexis
The name begins as Greek Alexios, latinized to Alexius and borne by several emperors of Byzantium, among them Alexios I Komnenos in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The legend of Saint Alexius, the beggar who lived unrecognised beneath his family's staircase, spread the name across medieval Europe in sermons and vernacular poems. French took it up as Alexis and kept it firmly masculine, which is how it reached North America; Russian shaped the same root into Aleksei. In the United States it was a boys' name for a century before an American primetime soap of the early 1980s, with its Alexis Carrington, pulled it sharply toward girls — and it has been shared ever since.
Meaning
defender, helper
From the Greek verb alexein, to ward off or defend. The same verb sits at the front of Alexander, which pairs it with aner, 'man'.
How the name formed
- Alexios
- Alexius
- Alexis
Related forms: Alexis · Alexios · Aleksei · Alessio · Alejo · Alexius
Pronouncing Alexis
uh-LEK-sis
In French the stress moves to the end and the final s goes silent: uh-lek-SEE. Both are correct for their language, and families with French ties often keep the French sound.
Nicknames for Alexis
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
- 1981 — Alexis Carrington rules Dynasty
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1931
- Most girls named
- 199919,237 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3reached in 1999
- Change vs 2023
- −20.3%547 in 2025, from 686
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.
Alexis in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alexis in French — same name
- Alexios in Greek — same name
- Aleksei in Russian — related form
- Alessio in Italian — same name
- Alejo in Spanish — related form
- Alexius in German — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Alexiss among us
people named Alexis are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,938 born in 2025 was named Alexis
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 Patricia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alexis's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Patricia climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Patricia's path sketches the road Alexis is walking now.
Alexis is coming down from a big peak (#3 in 1999). 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 Alexis is headed
Alexis is easing off slowly — about 27% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Alexis beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alexis in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognized spelling in English — people write it correctly on the first hearing, without a spelling-out.
- An unbroken record from Byzantine Greek through medieval Latin and French to modern English.
- Several settled short forms already in use: Alex, Lexi, Lex.
- Travels well: close cousins exist in French, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Greek.
- In the United States this spelling is given almost equally to boys and girls, so a boy named Alexis will meet forms, teachers and strangers who assume otherwise. In France, Russia and much of southern Europe the assumption runs the other way.
- It sits inside a crowded family — Alexa, Alexia, Alexus, Alexandra, Alexander — and Alexis is sometimes heard or written as one of those. The short form Alex belongs to all of them.
- Alexa is now also a household voice assistant, and the two names are near enough that the joke will occasionally surface, usually from adults rather than children.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Alexis
Feminine · #554 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alexiss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 339,000 people named Alexis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Alexis in 2025?
- Alexis ranks #554 among US girl names in 2025, with 547 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alexis?
- About 1 in every 2,938 US girls born in 2025 was named Alexis — 547 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alexis with classmates?
- Alexis will almost certainly be the only one in school.
- What explains the spikes and dips on Alexis's chart?
- Alexis climbed after 1981 — Alexis Carrington rules Dynasty.
Ranked beside Alexis
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Amaia#554 · Emerie#553 · Kamryn#556 · Frankie#551 · Stephanie#557 · Fernanda#551 · Jacqueline#558 · Holland#549
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alexis? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alexis and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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