Alexander

556,757 people in America carry this name — ranked #74 of 923.

A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.

Say it a luhg ZAN dur

4 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

AE2 L AH0 G Z AE1 N D ER0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 556,757 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 184.3 about 1 in 595 people
  • As a surname 197,734 ranked #120 the other way round

What Alexander means and where it comes from

Greek in origin, reading literally as “helper of men”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Alexander through the years

699,315 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1993, with 20,703 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90s 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1990s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Alexander

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Alexander Robert — runs together
  • Alexander Richard — runs together
  • Alexander Andrew — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

A name and a surname

Alexander is carried in front of the comma and behind it — thousands of Americans have it as a surname too.

Is Alexander used for boys or for girls?

99.6% men
2,468 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 59.4%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 4.9%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 26.2%
  • Two or more races — 5.1%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 4.0%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

How to spell Alexander

Alexander is how 74% of them spell it — 757,209 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

This name in other languages

  • Elek Hungarian
  • Sandy Scottish
  • Sacha Russian
  • Holex Lus
  • Halex Lus
  • Alick Scottish
  • Sawney Scottish
  • Sandro Italian
  • Sandor Hungarian
  • Leszek Polish
  • Ssachka Russian
  • Sanders Lett
  • Saunders Scottish
  • Iskender Turk

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

The states where Alexander is most common

In Nevada the name is given 1.6 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Nevada ×1.6
  • Rhode Island ×1.5
  • Connecticut ×1.4
  • the District of Columbia ×1.4
  • New Hampshire ×1.4

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it First-Year Costs

Open First-Year Costs on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Greek origin