Alisa
Feminine · “noble kind”
Alisa is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 34,705 girls against 22 boys since 1880.
Alisa is Alice with a Russian ending, or Alyssa with a letter removed — and both readings reach the same Germanic compound about noble kind.
How old is the name Alisa?
Alisa first appears in US birth records in 1945 — 80 years ago. The typical Alisa alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 33,000 people named Alisa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alisa most popular?
Alisa peaked in 1969, reaching #261 nationally. Today it ranks #1652, 1,391 places below that high. See the whole 1969 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Adalheidis to Alisa
The story of Alisa
Adalheidis was a tenth-century Burgundian empress and saint, and her name spread across Europe, worn down differently in each language — Alice in English and French, Adelheid in German, Alisa in Russian. Separately, Hebrew has Alisa as a modern name meaning joyful. American use of Alisa rose through the 1960s and peaked in the mid-1980s.
Meaningscholars disagree
noble kind, of noble sort
Through Alice, from the Germanic Adalheidis — athal, 'noble', and heid, 'kind' or 'sort'. Alisa is also the standard Russian form of Alice, and a Hebrew name Alisa exists separately, from a root meaning 'joyful'. All three feed the English spelling.
How the name formed
- Adalheidis
- Alice
- Alisa
Related forms: Алиса · Aliza · Alyssa · Adelheid
Pronouncing Alisa
uh-LEE-suh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. Russian says a-LEE-sa with a fuller first vowel; some Americans say uh-LISS-uh instead.
Nicknames for Alisa
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
- 1945
- Most girls named
- 19691,108 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #261reached in 1969
- Change vs 2023
- −23.3%125 in 2025, from 163
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.
Alisa in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Алиса in Russian — transliteration
- Aliza in Hebrew — related form
- Alyssa in English — spelling variant
- Adelheid in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, New York.
Alisas among us
people named Alisa are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 12,858 born in 2025 was named Alisa
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alisa
- #1652
- Alisa on the 2025 chart
- #394
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alisa went to 125 girls in 2025, but Aliza, Alizah and Alyza and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 8 spellings went to 754, which makes it the 394th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,258 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 2,132 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 12,858 for Alisa 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 Clarice test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alisa's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Clarice climbed just as high around 1913, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Clarice's path sketches the road Alisa is walking now.
Alisa 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 Alisa is headed
Alisa 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.
Alisa beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alisa in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Alice stands behind it with a thousand years of European use.
- It is the standard Russian form, which gives it a living existence outside English.
- Ali and Lisa are two short forms with enormous independent records.
- Two pronunciations are current in American English.
- Alyssa and Alissa are both close and easily confused.
- It is closely dated to the 1980s in American records.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Alisa
Feminine · #1652 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alisas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 33,000 people named Alisa are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alisa?
- Alisa is one of 8 recorded spellings. Aliza is the more common one — 420 births in 2025 against 125 for Alisa.
- How popular is the name Alisa in 2025?
- Alisa ranks #1652 among US girl names in 2025, with 125 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alisa?
- About 1 in every 12,858 US girls born in 2025 was named Alisa — 125 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alisa with classmates?
- Alisa will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alisa
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Baker#1652 · Abbie#1652 · Hailie#1652 · Adilene#1652 · Stacy#1652 · Leilah#1652 · Aylen#1652 · Royal#1652
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alisa? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alisa and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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