Alexander
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from the male personal name Alexander, ultimately Greek Alexandras, probably 'repeller of men' or 'defender'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/alɛɡzanda/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Alexander is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Russia than in any other country, where it is the most common given name.
- SESweden1 in 113(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 597
- CNChina≈1 in 3.3K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Alexander itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Russia (inferred from the name graph)
- #4 (measured from records)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 633 (measured from records)
- 1 in 113 (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,500,000 named Александр, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
6 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Александр in RU Russia, BY Belarus, CN China, Олександр in UA Ukraine, Alexandre in BR Brazil and Alexandr in MD Moldova.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the male personal name Alexander, ultimately Greek Alexandras, probably 'repeller of men' or 'defender'.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Alexander counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #1 | ≈5,500,000 est. | ≈1 in 26 | #1 | Александр | 308 |
| UA Ukraine | #1 | ≈1,700,000 est. | ≈1 in 26 | listed | Олександр | 205 |
| US United States | #171 | 556,757 | 1 in 597 | 554K | Alexander | 633 |
| CN China | — | ≈430,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Александр | 82 |
| BR Brazil | #40 | 422,722as Alexandre | 1 in 501 | 444K | Alexandre | 281 |
| BY Belarus | #2 | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 48 | 110 | Александр | 101 |
| SE Sweden | #248 | 90,442 | 1 in 113 | 90K | Alexander | 164 |
| MD Moldova | #6 | 58,511as Alexandru | 1 in 58 | 59K | Alexandr | 64 |
| LV Latvia | #4 | 31,483as Aleksandrs | 1 in 60 | 31K | אלכסנדר | 67 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Universal Dependencies Belarusian-HSE Corpus — Person Names (UD_Belarusian-HSE); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); e-services.md — living population register; PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Alexander is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Alexander is a classic and powerful boy's name of Greek origin, meaning "defender of men." Famously borne by Alexander the Great, the name has a long and distinguished history, appearing in the New Testament and belonging to numerous kings, popes, and saints. It remains a popular and timeless choice, suggesting strength, leadership, and a protective nature.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Alexander is of Greek origin and means "defender of men". A classic and historically significant name, it is associated with strength and leadership, most famously borne by Alexander the Great. In the New Testament, this Alexander is a man put forward to speak for the Jewish community during a riot in Ephesus.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Alexander originates from the Greek name Ἀλέξανδros (Aléxandros), which is a compound of the verb ἀλέξω (alexō), meaning "to defend" or "to ward off," and the noun ἀνήρ (anēr), meaning "man." Thus, the name carries the meaning "defender of men" or "protector of man."
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Alexander is the Latinized form of the Greek name Ἀλέξανδρος (Alexandros), which means "defender of men" or "protector of man". It is a compound of the Greek verb ἀλέξειν (aléxein), meaning "to ward off" or "defend", and the noun ἀνήρ (anḗr), meaning "man".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A classic and historically significant name of Greek origin, Alexander means 'defender of men'. It has been borne by kings, emperors, popes, and influential figures throughout history, most notably Alexander the Great, giving it a timeless and powerful appeal.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Alexander VI.b. 1431ITpope of the Catholic Church 1492–1503 from the Borgia family (1430/32-1503)
- Alexander VIIb. 1599ITpope of the Catholic Church from 1655 to 1667
- Alexander VIIIb. 1610ITpope of the Catholic Church from 1689 to 1691
- John A. Macdonaldb. 1815CAnot in their usual name1st prime minister of Canada from 1867 to 1873 and 1878 to 1891
- Alexander III of Russiab. 1845RUEmperor of Russia from 1881 to 1894
- Alexander Alekhineb. 1892FRRussian-French chess player (1892–1946)
- Alec Douglas-Homeb. 1903GBnot in their usual namePrime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1964
- Karl Alexander Müllerb. 1927CHSwiss physicist (1927–2023)
- Jenson Buttonb. 1980GBnot in their usual nameBritish racing driver
- Prince George of Walesb. 2013GBnot in their usual nameBritish prince; eldest child of William, Prince of Wales, and Catherine, Princess of Wales (born 2013)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 188 sources across 92 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 554K | #74 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 90K | #32 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 39K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 22K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 21K | #1,015 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 21K | #1,374 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 7.2K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.5K | #74 |
| MD Moldova | e-services.md — living population register | — | 1K | #345 |
Reference works 9
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Alexander?
- In the etymology graph, Alejandro, Alexandre and Oleksandr are forms of the same name in other languages; Lex is a recorded short or pet form.
- What does the name Alexander mean, and where does it come from?
- from the male personal name Alexander, ultimately Greek Alexandras, probably 'repeller of men' or 'defender'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Alexander a male or female name?
- Alexander is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Alexander have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.5 million people named Александр in Russia, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Alexander most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Alexander is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 113 people — even though Russia holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Alexander?
- In the United States, the national register counted 556,757 people named Alexander in 2020, about 1 in 597 residents.
- How common is Alexander compared with other names?
- In Russia, Alexander is the most common given name of 472,143 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Alexander?
- A machine transcription gives /alɛɡzanda/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Alexander?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/alexanderThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Alexander” — the most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.