Alicia
Masculine · “noble kind”
Alicia is given to girls far more often — 230,790 girls against 707 boys since 1880. See Alicia as a girl 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 1926 — 99 years ago. The typical Alicia alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 600 people named Alicia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alicia most popular?
Alicia peaked in 1984, reaching #1723 nationally. 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
- 1926
- Most boys named
- 198939 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1723reached in 1984
- Change vs 2004
- −16.7%5 in 2005, from 6
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
Alicias among us
people named Alicia are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Alicia sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
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
Masculine
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 600 people named Alicia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Alicia in 2025?
- Alicia is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Alicia with classmates?
- Alicia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More A names
The most-given names starting with A, all years combined.
Anthony#46 · Andrew#73 · Alexander#30 · Aaron#80 · Adam#101 · Arthur#87 · Albert#614 · Austin#113
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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