Alwyn
Masculine · “fair and blessed”
Alwyn is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 724 boys against 19 girls since 1880.
Two unrelated names arrived at the same spelling from opposite ends of Britain. Welsh gives al plus gwyn, fair or blessed; Old English gives Aethelwine, noble friend. The Welsh one is a compound of two adjectives and the English one of two nouns, and by the twentieth century they were indistinguishable.
How old is the name Alwyn?
Alwyn first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Alwyn alive today was born around 1945, making them about 80 years old. About 400 people named Alwyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alwyn most popular?
Alwyn peaked in 1918, reaching #1648 nationally. Today it ranks #6446, 4,798 places below that high. See the whole 1918 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aethelwine to Alwyn
The story of Alwyn
Aethelwine was an ordinary Old English man's name and survived the Norman Conquest as Alwin and Alwyn, one of a small number of English names that did; most were replaced within two generations. Meanwhile Welsh produced Alwyn independently, and it is also the name of a river and a reservoir in north Wales. The two converged in nineteenth-century British usage and are not now separable. The name reached United States records with British and Welsh migration and had its best year in 1918, which places it with the generation named during and just after the First World War.
Meaningscholars disagree
fair and blessed, or noble friend
The Welsh Alwyn contains gwyn in its mutated form -wyn, whose senses run from white to fair to holy; the first element is not securely explained. The Old English Aethelwine combines aethel, noble, with wine, friend, and both elements are secure. Aethel is the same element as in German edel and in Adelaide. Either can lie behind a modern Alwyn.
How the name formed
- Aethelwine
- Alwin
- Alwyn
Related forms: Alwyn · Alwin · Alwin
Pronouncing Alwyn
AL-win
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The Welsh y in a final syllable is a short i, so -wyn rhymes with tin; the same is true of the English -win.
Nicknames for Alwyn
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
- 1913
- Most boys named
- 191821 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1648reached in 1918
- Change vs 2023
- 0.0%13 in 2025, from 13
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.
Alwyn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alwyn in Welsh — same name
- Alwin in English — spelling variant
- Alwin in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California.
Alwyns among us
people named Alwyn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 131,390 born in 2025 was named Alwyn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alwyn
- #6446
- Alwyn on the 2025 chart
- #910
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alwyn went to 13 boys in 2025, but Alwin is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 18, which makes it the 910th most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,536 places above the chart.
- Alwyn13
- Alwin5
About 1 boy in 94,893 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 131,390 for Alwyn 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
Fashion outlook
Alwyn 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
Alwyn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alwyn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two genuine name histories behind it, one Welsh and one Old English.
- Al and Wyn are both short forms with independent lives.
- A rare survivor of the Old English name stock, if that is the route you claim.
- Alwin, Alwyn and Elwyn are all close and get confused.
- Two etymologies compete and neither can be assigned without genealogy.
- It reads as a name from the early twentieth century in American ears.
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Alwyn
Masculine · #6446 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alwyns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Alwyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alwyn?
- Alwyn is the most-used spelling in US records — 13 of the 18 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Alwin.
- How popular is the name Alwyn in 2025?
- Alwyn ranks #6446 among US boy names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alwyn?
- About 1 in every 131,390 US boys born in 2025 was named Alwyn — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alwyn with classmates?
- Alwyn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alwyn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rollie#6446 · Billie#6446 · Worth#6446 · Blas#6446 · Starling#6446 · Alvis#6446 · Elwyn#6446 · Rollin#6446
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alwyn? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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