Alicia
Feminine · “noble kind”
Alicia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 230,790 girls against 707 boys since 1880. See Alicia as a boy name
Alicia and Alice are the same name wearing two different national dresses, and American usage treats them as separate. Both descend from a long Germanic compound worn down by French mouths until only the front of it was left.
How old is the name Alicia?
Alicia first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Alicia alive today was born around 1984, making them about 41 years old. About 215,000 people named Alicia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alicia most popular?
Alicia peaked in 1984, reaching #40 nationally. Today it ranks #460, 420 places below that high. See the whole 1984 chart.
Where it comes from
From Adalheidis to Alicia
The story of Alicia
A girl born in London to a Jewish family, dancing professionally from childhood, was taken into Diaghilev's company at fourteen and became one of the defining dancers of the twentieth century. She did not do it under her own name. Ballet audiences of the nineteen-twenties took Russian dancers seriously and British ones considerably less so, and the convention among British dancers was to acquire a name that sounded like it came from somewhere else — so Lilian Alicia Marks became Alicia Markova, keeping her middle name and turning her surname into something with the right ending. Her contemporary Patrick Healey-Kay became Anton Dolin by the same logic. She went on to co-found two companies and to be the first British dancer to hold the top rank in the classical repertoire, under a name that was two-thirds invented for marketing reasons and that she carried for the rest of her life.
Meaning
noble kind; of noble sort
The Germanic original joined a word for noble to one meaning kind or sort, and French shortened it drastically — the full form survives separately as Adelaide. Latin then relatinised the French short form, which is where the spelling with a c comes from, and Spanish took it that way.
How the name formed
- Adalheidis
- Adelais
- Alice
- Alicia
Related forms: Alice · Alice · Alicia · Alissa · Alícia
Pronouncing Alicia
uh-LEE-shuh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The c before the i does two jobs at once — it carries the sh sound and the following vowel — which is why families also say uh-LISS-ee-uh and neither is wrong.
Nicknames for Alicia
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
- 1881
- Most girls named
- 19847,820 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #40reached in 1984
- Change vs 2022
- −11.6%672 in 2025, from 760
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.
Alicia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alice in English — same name
- Alice in French — same name
- Alicia in Italian — same name
- Alissa in German — related form
- Alícia in Portuguese — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Alicias among us
people named Alicia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,392 born in 2025 was named Alicia
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alicia
- #460
- Alicia on the 2025 chart
- #395
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alicia went to 672 girls in 2025, but Alysia, Alisia and Alycia are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 750, which makes it the 395th most-given girls’ name of the year — 65 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 2,143 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 2,392 for Alicia itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Lorraine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alicia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lorraine climbed just as high around 1928, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lorraine's path sketches the road Alicia is walking now.
Alicia sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Alicia is headed
Alicia should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Alicia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alicia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is at home in English and Spanish without being altered in either.
- Ali comes off it immediately and needs no explanation.
- The descent is documented all the way back to a Germanic compound.
- It has two accepted pronunciations, and a bearer will be correcting one of them all her life.
- Alisha, Alysia and Alecia are all recorded and will be written for it.
- It has been common for decades, so a classroom may hold more than one.
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What they receive
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Alicia
Feminine · #460 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alicias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 215,000 people named Alicia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alicia?
- Alicia is the most-used spelling in US records — 672 of the 750 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Alysia, Alisia and Alycia.
- How popular is the name Alicia in 2025?
- Alicia ranks #460 among US girl names in 2025, with 672 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alicia?
- About 1 in every 2,392 US girls born in 2025 was named Alicia — 672 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alicia with classmates?
- Alicia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alicia
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Helen#461 · Elle#461 · Kataleya#458 · Elisa#458 · Xiomara#463 · Madilyn#464 · Wynter#456 · Clementine#456
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alicia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alicia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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