Alison
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ‘son of Aleis/Alice’; first attested Patrick Alissone 1296 Black (Berwick); also a late form of Allanson
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/aʎɪsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Alison is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 647(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 747
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.3K
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 Alison 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #889 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 557 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 647 (inferred from the name graph)
280,746 named Allison, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
‘son of Aleis/Alice’; first attested Patrick Alissone 1296 Black (Berwick); also a late form of Allanson
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Alison 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #441 | 280,746as Allison | 1 in 1.2K | 279K | Alison | 557 |
| BR Brazil | — | 119,578as Alisson | 1 in 1.8K | 120K | — | 6 |
| GB United Kingdom | #104 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 647 | 5 | Alison | 354 |
| AU Australia | #131 | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 747 | 87 | Alison | 273 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 22,960as Alisson | 1 in 736 | 23K | Alison | 40 |
| NZ New Zealand | #172 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 12 | Alison | 148 |
| ES Spain | #863 | 1,005 | 1 in 50K | 1K | Alison | 104 |
280,746 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling allison. 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); INEC — civil registry names; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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)
Alison 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.
In English, from OFr Alison/Alizon, pet form of Alice; first attested William Alisun c1248 Bec; later Scottish Elison; see Ellison
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In Irish, Diminutive of Alice; recorded in France from the 13th century and occasionally used in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, Teutonic; noble form of Alice, often used as an independent name.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
From a very common medieval name, a Norman French diminutive of pAlice. Despite its early popularity, it became quite rare in England in the 16th century. However, it survived in Scotland, with the result that until its revival in
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A female given name from the Germanic languages.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- William Andersb. 1933USnot in their usual nameAmerican astronaut and lunar explorer (1933–2024)
- Alison Steadmanb. 1946GBBritish actress
- Alyson Reedb. 1958USnot in their usual nameAmerican dancer and actress
- Alison Kraussb. 1971USAmerican musician
- Alison Eastwoodb. 1972USAmerican actress
- Alison Lohmanb. 1979USAmerican actress
- Alisan Porterb. 1981USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and singer
- Alison Brieb. 1982USAmerican actress and writer (born 1982)
- A Fine Frenzyb. 1984USnot in their usual nameAmerican musician
- Alison Pillb. 1985CACanadian actress (born 1985)
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 108 sources across 54 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 111K | #507 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 73K | #601 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 55K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 54K | #532 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 12K | #181 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 2.7K | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 1K | #2,846 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 863 | #1,557 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 644 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 528 | #532 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 446 | #507 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2024 | 133 | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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)
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 does the name Alison mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘son of Aleis/Alice’; first attested Patrick Alissone 1296 Black (Berwick); also a late form of Allanson Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What are other forms of the name Alison?
- In the etymology graph, Alicia, Allison and Heidi are forms of the same name in other languages; Ali, Allie and Ally are recorded short or pet forms; it is recorded as a short form of Alice and Alix.
- Is Alison a male or female name?
- Alison is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- How common is the name Alison?
- In Spain, the national register counted 1,005 people named Alison, about 1 in 50 thousand residents.
- How common is Alison compared with other names?
- In the United States, Alison is the 441st most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Alison?
- A machine transcription gives /aʎɪsən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Alison have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 281 thousand people named Allison, more than in any other country we hold.
What do you want to know about Alison?
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/alisonThe 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, “Alison” — the 441st most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.