Alan
Celtic masculine name derived from a Breton word meaning "handsome".
Name Census estimates that about 283,264 living Americans carry the first name Alan. It sits at #167 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Alan today is around 51 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Alan births was 1955 (9,048 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Alan. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Alan with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Alan is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 1,076 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
283K
~ 1 in 1,210 Americans
Peak year
1955
9,048 babies that year
Average age
51
years old
2024 SSA rank
#167
Tracked since 1882
Census
Alan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 284,873 people with the first name Alan, which placed it at #184 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#184
National first-name rank
People counted
285K
284,873 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
94.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
70.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Alan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Alan is White at 70.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (18.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Alan described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Alan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White70.8% · 201,774
- Hispanic or Latino18.2% · 51,710
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.2% · 14,704
- Black or African American3.4% · 9,664
- Two or more races2.0% · 5,726
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 1,295
Gender
Gender distribution for Alan
Out of the 362,464 babies given the name Alan since 1880, 99.7% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Alan as a male name
- Ranked #167 in 2024
- 2,183 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1955 (9,033 births)
Alan as a female name
- Ranked #15,770 in 2018
- 5 female births in 2018
- Peak: 1962 (28 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Alan appears almost entirely male. Of the 284,872 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Alan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Alan from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 84,119 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Alan by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Alan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Alans live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Alan, while Alaska, Wyoming, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 7,040 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Alan
The name Alan has its origins in the ancient Celtic language, deriving from the Brittonic word "alan," which means "little rock" or "handsome." It is believed to have emerged in the region now known as Great Britain and France during the Middle Ages.
Alan is a variation of the Old Breton name "Alan," which was widely used in Brittany, a cultural region in the northwest of France. This name gained popularity across Europe during the Middle Ages, particularly after the legendary figure of Alan the Great, a 6th-century Breton prince and warrior who fought against the invading Saxons.
One of the earliest recorded mentions of the name Alan can be found in the 9th-century Latin work "Vita Sancti Samsonis," which recounts the life of the Welsh saint Samson. In this text, the name appears as "Alanus," referring to a prominent figure in Brittany.
Throughout history, the name Alan has been borne by numerous notable individuals. One of the most famous was Alan Rufus (c. 1040-1093), a Norman nobleman who served as the first Lord of Richmond and played a significant role in the Norman conquest of England.
Another prominent figure was Alan of Lille (c. 1116-1202), a French theologian, poet, and philosopher who made significant contributions to the development of medieval scholasticism.
In the realm of literature, the name Alan is associated with the Scottish writer Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956), best known for creating the beloved characters Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin.
The world of science and technology has also been graced by individuals named Alan, such as Alan Turing (1912-1954), the English mathematician and computer scientist who made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence and theoretical computer science.
In the world of cinema, the name Alan is closely tied to the renowned actor Alan Rickman (1946-2016), who captivated audiences with his performances in films such as "Die Hard," "Sense and Sensibility," and the "Harry Potter" series.
These are just a few examples of the many notable individuals who have borne the name Alan throughout history, showcasing its enduring presence and significance across various fields and cultures.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Alan
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Alan Alda
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Alan Arkin
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Alan Bates
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Alan Bridges
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Alan Bunce
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Alan Crosland
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Alan Cumming
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Alan Davies
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Alan Embree
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Alan Foster
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Alan Hale
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Alan Jacobs
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Alan Ladd
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Alan Metter
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Alan Miller
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Alan Mollohan
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Alan Pakula
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Alan Parker
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Alan Rickman
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Alan Ruck
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Alan Rudolph
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Alan Shearer
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Alan Smithee
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Alan Trammell
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Alan Tudyk
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Alan Young
People
Alan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Alan as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Alan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Alan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 283,264 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Alan going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,210 US residents.
Is Alan a common name?
We classify Alan as "Common". It ranks above 99.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 362,464 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Alan most popular?
The single biggest year for Alan was 1955, when 9,048 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Alan is about 51 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Alan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 284,873 people with the name Alan, or 94.32 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #184 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Alan in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Alan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Alan appears almost entirely male. Of the 284,872 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Alan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Alan is White at 70.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (18.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Alan most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Alan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 70.8% (201,774 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Alan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Alan a male name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Alan in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Alan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Alan in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Alan can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Alan as a first name?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.