Alexis last name popularity, history, and meaning

Find out how popular the last name Alexis is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Alexis.

Meaning of Alexis

A Greek surname derived from the given name Alexis, meaning "helper" or "defender."

Alexis, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Alexis surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Alexis in America

Alexis is the 5070th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Alexis surname appeared 6,915 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 2 people would have the surname Alexis.

We can also compare 2010 data for Alexis to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

2010 2000 Change (%)
Rank 5070 6288 -21.45%
Count 6,915 4,991 32.32%
Proportion per 100k 2.34 1.85 23.39%

The history of the last name Alexis

The surname Alexis is of Greek origin, deriving from the Greek name Alexios, which means "defender" or "helper." The name can be traced back to ancient Greece, where it was commonly used as a personal name.

Alexis is believed to have originated from the Greek island of Crete, where it was a popular name among the aristocracy and ruling classes during the Byzantine Empire. The name later spread to other parts of Greece and the broader Mediterranean region.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Alexis can be found in the works of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who mentions an Alexis from the city of Samos in the 5th century BC.

In the Middle Ages, the name Alexis appeared in various historical records and manuscripts across Europe. For instance, it is mentioned in the Domesday Book, a survey commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086, which recorded the landholders in England at the time.

Notable individuals who bore the surname Alexis include:

  1. Alexis of Byzantium (5th century BC), a Greek sculptor and architect who designed the famous Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
  2. Alexis Mikhailovich (1629-1676), a Russian Tsar and the second Romanov ruler of Russia.
  3. Alexis Sanchez (born 1988), a Chilean professional footballer who has played for clubs like Arsenal, Manchester United, and Barcelona.
  4. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), a French political thinker and historian best known for his works "Democracy in America" and "The Old Regime and the Revolution."
  5. Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), a French surgeon and biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for his work on vascular suturing and transplantation.

The surname Alexis has also been associated with various place names and older spellings. For example, the name Alexishafen (Alexis Harbor) was a former German colonial settlement in present-day Namibia, while Alexisbad was a spa town in Germany.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Alexis

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Alexis.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

  1. White only
  2. Black only
  3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
  4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
  5. Hispanic
  6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Alexis was:

Race/Ethnicity Percentage Total Occurrences
Non-Hispanic White Only 13.55% 937
Non-Hispanic Black Only 75.72% 5,236
Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only 0.97% 67
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native 1.10% 76
Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races 3.08% 213
Hispanic Origin 5.58% 386

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Alexis has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

2010 2000 Change (%)
White 13.55% 16.35% -18.73%
Black 75.72% 68.72% 9.69%
Asian and Pacific Islander 0.97% 0.60% 47.13%
American Indian and Alaskan Native 1.10% 2.14% -64.20%
Two or More Races 3.08% 7.27% -80.97%
Hispanic 5.58% 4.91% 12.77%

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Alexis was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Alexis, please contact us.

Reference this page

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If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!

"Alexis last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com. Accessed on December 22, 2024. http://namecensus.com/last-names/alexis-surname-popularity/.

"Alexis last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com, http://namecensus.com/last-names/alexis-surname-popularity/. Accessed 22 December, 2024

Alexis last name popularity, history, and meaning. NameCensus.com. Retrieved from http://namecensus.com/last-names/alexis-surname-popularity/.

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