Alec
A masculine name derived from the Greek form of Alexander, meaning "defender".
Name Census estimates that about 52,325 living Americans carry the first name Alec. It is a predominantly male name (99.4% of registrations). The average person named Alec today is around 28 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Alec births was 1995 (3,457 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Alec. 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 Alec with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Alec is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 337 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
52K
~ 1 in 6,550 Americans
Peak year
1995
3,457 babies that year
Average age
28
years old
2024 SSA rank
#878
Tracked since 1880
Census
Alec in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 49,531 people with the first name Alec, which placed it at #911 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
#911
National first-name rank
People counted
50K
49,531 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
16.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
74.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Alec
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Alec is White at 74.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (15.0%) and Two or More Races (4.6%). 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 Alec 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 Alec at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White74.2% · 36,775
- Hispanic or Latino15.0% · 7,450
- Two or more races4.6% · 2,254
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.8% · 1,392
- Black or African American2.7% · 1,349
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 311
Gender
Gender distribution for Alec
Out of the 55,253 babies given the name Alec since 1880, 99.4% 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.
Alec as a male name
- Ranked #878 in 2024
- 273 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1995 (3,420 births)
Alec as a female name
- Ranked #14,420 in 2016
- 6 female births in 2016
- Peak: 1995 (37 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Alec appears almost entirely male. Of the 49,538 people counted with this name, 99.1% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Alec: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Alec from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 26,122 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Alec 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 Alec during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Alecs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Alec, while Wyoming, Vermont, Delaware recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 988 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Alec
The name Alec has its origins in the ancient Greek language, deriving from the name Alexandros, which means "defender of men" or "protector of men." This name was borne by Alexander the Great, the legendary Macedonian king and military commander who lived from 356 BCE to 323 BCE and conquered vast territories stretching from Greece to India.
The name Alexandros was later Latinized as Alexander, and its shortened form, Alec, emerged in medieval Scotland and England as a diminutive or nickname. In these regions, the name was often spelled as Alec, Aleck, or Alek, reflecting the local linguistic variations.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Alec can be found in the 13th century, with Alec Dunbar, a Scottish nobleman and crusader who participated in the Ninth Crusade in the late 1200s. Another notable figure from this era was Alec Stewart, a Scottish knight who fought alongside Robert the Bruce during the Scottish Wars of Independence in the early 14th century.
In the 16th century, the name gained prominence with Alec Hay, a Scottish poet and clergyman who served as the secretary to King James VI of Scotland and I of England. Around the same time, Alec Fyfe, a Scottish merchant and explorer, embarked on voyages to the Arctic regions and contributed to the expansion of trade routes.
The 19th century saw the birth of Alec Guinness, the renowned English actor who portrayed iconic roles such as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films. He was born in 1914 and passed away in 2000. Another notable figure was Alec Douglas-Home, a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1964.
In the 20th century, Alec Issigonis, a British-Greek designer, gained recognition for his innovative work on the Mini, a revolutionary small car that became an icon of British automotive design. He lived from 1906 to 1988.
More recently, the name has been associated with individuals like Alec Baldwin, the American actor known for his roles in films such as "The Departed" and "30 Rock," and Alec Stewart, the English cricketer who played for the national team and captained them in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Alec
People
Alec + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Alec 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
Alec: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Alec?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 52,325 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Alec 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 6,550 US residents.
Is Alec a common name?
We classify Alec as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 55,253 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Alec most popular?
The single biggest year for Alec was 1995, when 3,457 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Alec is about 28 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Alec in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 49,531 people with the name Alec, or 16.40 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #911 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 Alec 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 Alec?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Alec appears almost entirely male. Of the 49,538 people counted with this name, 99.1% 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 Alec?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Alec is White at 74.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (15.0%) and Two or More Races (4.6%). 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 Alec most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Alec in the 2020 Census, accounting for 74.2% (36,775 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 Alec in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Alec a male name?
Yes, 99.4% of people registered as Alec 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 Alec still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Alec 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 Alec 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 the name Alec?
If you just want to know how many people share the name Alec, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.