Alice
- Pronunciation
- [Al-ice]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Sweet
- Origin
- German
About the Name Alice
Alice descends through Norman French Aalis from the Germanic Adalheidis — composed of adal (noble) and heid (kind, sort) — yielding "of noble kind" or "noble birth." The same Germanic root produced Adelaide (a fuller form of the same name) and the medieval English Allison (see separate entry). Alice arrived in English with the Norman conquest and was used continuously throughout the medieval period.
The name's overwhelming literary anchor is Alice Liddell (1852–1934) — the real seven-year-old daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, who inspired Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871). The fictional Alice has become one of the most internationally recognized literary characters in history, and Carroll's two books have been continuously in print for over 150 years. Other notable bearers include Alice Roosevelt Longworth (Theodore Roosevelt's daughter), British Prime Minister Alice Cropper, novelist Alice Walker (Pulitzer-winning author of The Color Purple), and contemporary actress Alicia Vikander (the related Spanish form).
Alice held a US top-30 girls' rank from 1880 through 1955 — over seven decades of top-tier American popularity. After a long mid-20th-century quiet period, the name began climbing again in the 1990s, reaching the US top 75 by 2018 and the top 50 by 2023. The appeal is its layered classical register — medieval English pedigree, the Lewis Carroll literary anchor, two short syllables, instantly readable, and dignified without being heavy. Common nicknames Allie, Lissy, and the rare Alley each carry distinct registers; the longer formal forms Alicia (Spanish), Alyssa (English), and the back-formed Alessandra (Italian) sit in adjacent territory. International forms include Alicia (Spanish/Portuguese), Alessandra (Italian, related), Alise (German), Alicja (Polish), and the original Norman French Aalis.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Alice
US Popularity History (1880–2025)
Annual US births named Alice by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1921 with 11,955 girls named Alice (girl rank #15 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #65 for girls (3,547 US births). That's 50 places below its 1921 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 Alice Most Popular?
Average girl-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 girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Alice the strongest states are District of Columbia, Utah, Vermont.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | #32 | 179 |
| 2 | Utah | #36 | 724 |
| 3 | Vermont | #37 | 78 |
| 4 | Alaska | #44 | 115 |
| 5 | Oregon | #44 | 519 |
| 6 | Maine | #46 | 169 |
| 7 | Washington | #48 | 974 |
| 8 | Idaho | #48 | 280 |
| 9 | Massachusetts | #49 | 920 |
| 10 | Wyoming | #53 | 36 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #142 | 177 |
| 2 | South Dakota | #126 | 80 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #104 | 126 |
| 4 | Hawaii | #103 | 70 |
| 5 | New Mexico | #103 | 131 |
| 6 | Ohio | #99 | 918 |
| 7 | North Dakota | #97 | 92 |
| 8 | Delaware | #96 | 43 |
| 9 | Georgia | #93 | 857 |
| 10 | North Carolina | #92 | 897 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Alice in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alecia | Beautiful Queen. | Female | English |
| Ali | The Highest; The Greatest; Noble | Male | Arabic |
| Alia | Princess Of The Academics. | Female | English |
| Alisa | Of The Nobility. | Female | Spanish |
| Alise | Of The Nobility. | Female | Spanish |
| Alison | Diminutive Form Of Old German Alice, "Woman Of Noble Estate."Variants Include Aili, Alisann, Alisanne, Alisoun, Alisun, Allcen, Allcenne, Allicen, Allicenne, Allie, Allisann, Allisanne, Allison, Allisoun, Allsun, Ally, Allysann, Allysanne, Ally | Female | German |
| Alissa | Variant Of Alice. | Female | English |
| Alix | "Noble." See Alexandra. Variants Include Alex, Alexa, Alexis, Aliki, Alissandre, Alissandrine, Lissandre. | Female | German |
| Aliz | Hungarian Form Of Alice (Noble) | Female | Hungarian |
| Alize | The Clouds Of Heaven | Female | English |
| Allie | Greatest. A Variant Of Allah - The Supreme Being In The Muslim Faith. | Female | Arabic |
| Allison | Variation Of Alice. | Female | French |
| Alyssa | Rational | Female | Greek |
| Elke | Noble. Variant Of Alice. | Female | German |
| Elli | Devoted To God | Female | Hebrew |
| Ellie | Abbreviation Of Eleanor And Ellen. | Female | English |
| Elsa | Truth | Female | Spanish |
| Lissa | Honey | Female | English |
Famous People Named Alice
4 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Alice.
- Alice James was an American diarist, known mainly for her posthumously published diary that she kept in her final years.
- Alice Munro is a Man Booker International Prize winning writer from Canada.
- Alice Paul — Civil Rights Leader (1885)
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth was the eldest child of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Looking for names like Alice?
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 Alice to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Alice against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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