Alan
- Pronunciation
- [A-lan]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Fair: Handsome. See Also Allen.
- Origin
- Celtic
About the Name Alan
Alan descends from the Old Breton Alan or Alarm, traditionally derived from the medieval Celtic root al meaning "rock" or "high one" — though etymologists also propose connections to a Slavic word for "deer" via the medieval Alans (a nomadic Iranian people who moved into Europe). The name was carried into England with the Norman Conquest of 1066 by Breton soldiers in William's army, and it has been continuously used in English-speaking countries since the 11th century.
Notable historical bearers include British author A. A. Milne (Alan Alexander Milne, 1882–1956, creator of Winnie-the-Pooh), British mathematician and computing pioneer Alan Turing (1912–1954, whose work on the Bombe machine helped break Nazi Enigma codes during WWII; the foundational figure of theoretical computer science), American comedian Alan Alda (long-running M*A*S*H television series), and Nobel laureate Alan MacDiarmid.
Alan held a US top-100 boys' rank from 1929 through 1980 — over fifty years of consistent American popularity, peaking in the 1940s and 1950s. The name has receded since but remains in steady use. The appeal is its compact accessibility — two short syllables, soft consonants, instantly readable, and tonal versatility from classical to modern. The name reads as inherently masculine without being heavy — a quality shared by mid-20th-century American boys' names like David and Stephen. Common nicknames Al, Allen (a related but distinct alternate spelling), and the rare Lan each carry distinct registers. The alternate spellings Allen, Alun (Welsh), and Allan each have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Allen (alternate English), Alain (French), Alano (Italian), and Alán (Hungarian).
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Alan
US Popularity History (1938–2025)
Annual US births named Alan by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1955 with 9,033 boys named Alan (boy rank #43 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #191 for boys (1,915 US births). That's 148 places below its 1955 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Alan Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Alan the strongest states are California, Texas, Nevada.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #105 | 4,013 |
| 2 | Texas | #107 | 3,347 |
| 3 | Nevada | #133 | 239 |
| 4 | Illinois | #140 | 896 |
| 5 | Arizona | #145 | 541 |
| 6 | Florida | #154 | 1,314 |
| 7 | New Mexico | #158 | 132 |
| 8 | New York | #164 | 1,143 |
| 9 | Colorado | #166 | 378 |
| 10 | New Jersey | #168 | 534 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Missouri | #451 | 130 |
| 2 | Louisiana | #394 | 129 |
| 3 | Ohio | #367 | 280 |
| 4 | Michigan | #332 | 258 |
| 5 | Kentucky | #322 | 139 |
| 6 | Wisconsin | #316 | 182 |
| 7 | Minnesota | #313 | 176 |
| 8 | Iowa | #284 | 121 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | #280 | 377 |
| 10 | Mississippi | #278 | 94 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Alan in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Alan
12 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Alan.
- Alan Coren was a British humorist and writer.
- Alan Cranston was a prominent figure in the politics of the US.
- Alan Cumming — TV Actor (1965)
- Alan Davies — Comedian (1966)
- Alan Dershowitz is a famous American lawyer, who has authored many books.
- Alan Dundes was a prominent figure in the arena of folklore.
- Alan Greenspan is an influential American economist.
- Alan Hansen is a Scottish former football player and football and sports analyst.
- Alan Hovhaness was a great American composer who mixed Western and Asian genre of music.
- Alan Jackson — Country Singer (1958)
- Alan Jay Lerner was a renowned American librettist and lyricist.
- Alan John Percival Taylor was one of the most highly regarded historians of the 19th and 20th century.
Looking for names like Alan?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Alan to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Alan against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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