Alison
Variant of the French name Alice derived from the Germanic name Adalheidis meaning "noble natured".
Name Census estimates that about 106,682 living Americans carry the first name Alison. It sits at #465 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly female name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Alison today is around 39 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Alison births was 1986 (3,000 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Alison. 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 Alison with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Alison is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 590 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
107K
~ 1 in 3,213 Americans
Peak year
1986
3,000 babies that year
Average age
39
years old
2022 SSA rank
#465
Tracked since 1905
Census
Alison in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 111,217 people with the first name Alison, which placed it at #507 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
#507
National first-name rank
People counted
111K
111,217 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
36.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
79.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Alison
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Alison is White at 79.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (11.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.9%). 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 Alison 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 Alison at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White79.9% · 88,856
- Hispanic or Latino11.6% · 12,943
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.9% · 3,208
- Two or more races2.7% · 2,997
- Black or African American2.5% · 2,820
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 393
Gender
Gender distribution for Alison
Out of the 116,827 babies given the name Alison since 1880, 99.5% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Alison as a male name
- Ranked #10,927 in 2022
- 6 male births in 2022
- Peak: 1989 (27 births)
Alison as a female name
- Ranked #465 in 2024
- 673 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1980 (2,980 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Alison appears almost entirely female. Of the 111,220 people counted with this name, 99.6% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Alison: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Alison from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 27,180 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Alison 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 Alison during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Alisons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Alison, while Wyoming, Alaska, Montana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,230 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Alison
The name Alison originated from the Old French name Alis, which was a diminutive form of the name Alix, derived from the Germanic name Adalheidis. Adalheidis was composed of the elements "adal," meaning "noble," and "heid," meaning "kind, sort, type, or noble-born."
The name Alison gained popularity in England and Scotland during the Middle Ages, around the 12th and 13th centuries. It was often spelled as Alis, Aleyson, or Alison. The name was also influenced by the French name Alice, which had a similar origin.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Alison can be found in the medieval romance "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," written in the late 14th century. In the poem, Alison is mentioned as the daughter of the Green Knight.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Alison. One of the earliest was Alison de Vere (born around 1315), an English noblewoman and the wife of Sir Thomas de Wodehouse. Another early bearer of the name was Alison Walpole (1534-1583), an English lady-in-waiting and the mother of Sir Edward Walpole.
In the 17th century, Alison Farmer (1622-1675) was an English Quaker preacher and writer. In the 18th century, Alison Rutherford (1712-1794) was a Scottish novelist and poet, best known for her novel "The Solitary."
In more recent history, Alison Uttley (1884-1976) was an English writer famous for her children's books, including the "Little Grey Rabbit" series. Alison Lurie (born 1926) is an American novelist and academic who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1985 for her novel "Foreign Affairs."
Notable bearers
Famous people named Alison
People
Alison + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Alison 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
Alison: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Alison?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 106,682 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Alison 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 3,213 US residents.
Is Alison a common name?
We classify Alison as "Common". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 116,827 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Alison most popular?
The single biggest year for Alison was 1986, when 3,000 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Alison is about 39 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Alison in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 111,217 people with the name Alison, or 36.82 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #507 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 Alison 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 Alison?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Alison appears almost entirely female. Of the 111,220 people counted with this name, 99.6% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Alison?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Alison is White at 79.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (11.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.9%). 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 Alison most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Alison in the 2020 Census, accounting for 79.9% (88,856 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 Alison in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Alison a female name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Alison in the SSA data are female. 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 Alison still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Alison 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 Alison 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 Alison as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.