Alyson
Feminine · “noble”
Alyson is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 29,730 girls against 10 boys since 1880.
Alyson reaches back to medieval England, where Alice arrived with the Normans and picked up the French diminutive ending -on. One of the best-loved Middle English love lyrics, kept in a manuscript of the early fourteenth century, ends each verse on the name — and spells it Alysoun, with the same y that looks so modern now. Four syllables in the mouth for some, three for most: it settles easily either way.
How old is the name Alyson?
Alyson first appears in US birth records in 1944 — 81 years ago. The typical Alyson alive today was born around 1995, making them about 30 years old. About 29,000 people named Alyson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Alyson most popular?
Alyson peaked in 1987, reaching #346 nationally. Today it ranks #1388, 1,042 places below that high. See the whole 1987 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Adalheidis to Alyson
The story of Alyson
Alice came to England from Old French Aalis, itself a worn-down form of the Germanic name Adalheidis. French speakers made pet forms of it, and Alison was one; it crossed the Channel with the rest of the Norman naming stock and took root. Chaucer used it twice in the Canterbury Tales — the carpenter's wife Alisoun in the Miller's Tale, and the Wife of Bath, who tells us her name is Alison. The name later faded in England while staying in steady use in Scotland, and it was from there that the English-speaking world took it back up in the twentieth century, at which point the older y-spellings returned alongside Alison and Allison.
Meaning
noble — through Alice, from Germanic Adalheidis, 'noble sort'
Alison and its spellings began as an affectionate French form of Alice, built with the diminutive suffix -on; the meaning is inherited from Alice rather than from the ending.
How the name formed
- Adalheidis
- Aalis
- Alis
- Alisoun
- Alyson
Related forms: Alison · Allison · Alison · Alysoun · Alice · Adelheid
Pronouncing Alyson
AL-ih-sun
The y is silent as a letter — it sounds exactly like Alison. Some speakers compress it to AL-sun in quick speech.
Nicknames for Alyson
High
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
- 1944
- Most girls named
- 1990741 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #346reached in 1987
- Change vs 2023
- −21.5%157 in 2025, from 200
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.
Alyson in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Alison in English — spelling variant
- Allison in English — spelling variant
- Alison in French — same name
- Alysoun in Middle English — spelling variant
- Alice in English — related form
- Adelheid in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Alysons among us
people named Alyson are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,237 born in 2025 was named Alyson
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Alyson
- #1388
- Alyson on the 2025 chart
- #76
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Alyson went to 157 girls in 2025, but Allison, Alison and Allyson 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 — 1,312 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 10,237 for Alyson 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 Shirlee test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Alyson's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Shirlee climbed just as high around 1935, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Shirlee's path sketches the road Alyson is walking now.
Alyson 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 Alyson is headed
Alyson 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.
Alyson beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Alyson in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Pronunciation is never in doubt: everyone who reads English already says it correctly on sight.
- A documented line from medieval French through Chaucer's English to today, with the y-spelling itself attested in Middle English.
- Established short forms — Ally, Aly, Alys — that have long stood alone as names.
- Recognizable in French and long-established in Scotland, so it travels without translation.
- Four spellings compete: Alison, Allison, Alyson, Allyson. Since they all sound identical, she will spell it aloud often, and mail will arrive with the wrong one. Worth deciding you don't mind.
- By sound rather than spelling, the name is far more common than the Alyson spelling alone suggests — she may be the only Alyson in a class and still share the sound with an Allison.
- It sits strongly with people now around thirty, so to some ears it will read as belonging to that generation rather than to babies — though it is quiet enough now to feel uncrowded.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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Alyson
Feminine · #1388 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Alysons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 29,000 people named Alyson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Alyson?
- Alyson is one of 4 recorded spellings. Allison is the more common one — 2,564 births in 2025 against 157 for Alyson.
- How popular is the name Alyson in 2025?
- Alyson ranks #1388 among US girl names in 2025, with 157 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Alyson?
- About 1 in every 10,237 US girls born in 2025 was named Alyson — 157 in all.
- Will my child share the name Alyson with classmates?
- Alyson will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Alyson
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Noel#1388 · Jael#1388 · Esmeray#1388 · Austyn#1388 · Delainey#1388 · Gaia#1388 · Jersey#1388 · True#1382
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Alyson? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Alyson and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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