Alison
Feminine · “noble”
Alison is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 116,886 girls against 595 boys since 1880. See Alison as a boy name
There are two Alisouns in the Canterbury Tales and they are the two most alive women in the book. One is the carpenter's young wife in the Miller's Tale. The other is the Wife of Bath, who has had five husbands and is not finished. Chaucer gave the same name to both, which cannot be an accident.
How old is the name Alison?
Alison first appears in US birth records in 1905 — 120 years ago. The typical Alison alive today was born around 1985, making them about 40 years old. About 111,000 people named Alison are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alison most popular?
Alison peaked in 1986, reaching #96 nationally. Today it ranks #476, 380 places below that high. See the whole 1986 chart.
Alison appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From adal to Alison
The story of Alison
The -on and -in endings were the ordinary French way of making a pet form in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and English took a handful of the results as names in their own right: Alison, Marion, Perrin, Robin, Colin, Jocelin. Alison arrived with the Normans and was common enough by Chaucer's time to be the obvious name for an ordinary woman. Both of his Alisouns are exactly that: not noble, not allegorical, and given more life than anyone else in the poem. The name went out of English use for centuries and came back in the twentieth, first in Scotland, where it had never entirely gone, and then everywhere.
Meaning
noble
Alison is Alice with the Old French diminutive -on: Alis plus -on, exactly as Marie gives Marion and Pierre gives Perrin. Alice runs back through Adelais to the Germanic adal, noble. So the name is little Alice, at a distance of nine hundred years.
How the name formed
- adal
- Adelais
- Alice
- Alison
Related forms: Alison · Alison
Pronouncing Alison
AL-ih-sun
Three syllables, stress on the first. Alison, Allison and Alyson are said identically; the doubled l is the commoner American spelling and changes nothing.
Nicknames for Alison
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
- 1905
- Most girls named
- 19802,980 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #96reached in 1986
- Change vs 2023
- −1.5%644 in 2025, from 654
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.
Alison in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alison in French — same name
- Alison in Scottish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Alisons among us
people named Alison are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,496 born in 2025 was named Alison
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alison
- #476
- Alison on the 2025 chart
- #76
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alison went to 644 girls in 2025, but Allison, Allyson and Alyson are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 3,577, which makes it the 76th most-given girls’ name of the year — 400 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 449 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 2,496 for Alison 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 Inez test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alison's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Inez climbed just as high around 1909, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Inez's path sketches the road Alison is walking now.
Alison 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 Alison is headed
Alison 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.
Alison beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alison in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Germanic meaning at the end of a fully documented chain.
- Three short forms, two of which are full names in their own right.
- Continuous documented use in English and Scots for eight hundred years.
- Allison with two l's is commoner in America, so the spelling will be given often.
- It is strongly represented among people now in their thirties and forties, which places it in time.
- The very few boys given this spelling will be read as girls on paper.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Alison to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Alison
Feminine · #476 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alisons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 111,000 people named Alison are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alison?
- Alison is one of 4 recorded spellings. Allison is the more common one — 2,564 births in 2025 against 644 for Alison.
- How popular is the name Alison in 2025?
- Alison ranks #476 among US girl names in 2025, with 644 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alison?
- About 1 in every 2,496 US girls born in 2025 was named Alison — 644 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alison with classmates?
- Alison will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alison
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rylie#476 · Camryn#476 · Winnie#475 · Alexandria#474 · Felicity#473 · Haisley#479 · Saige#480 · Renata#481
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alison? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alison and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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