Alec

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Alec is a given name, most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is the 5th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: English and Scottish short form of pAlexander, now somewhat less popular in England than pAlex.

rarermore common
  • RURussia1 in 34◐
  • BYBelarus1 in 44
  • UAUkraine1 in 52

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈1.0M ●

across 11 countries

#22 ●

of 16M given names

8 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
602 ●

22M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 136 ◐

Finland

Spellings & scripts●

АлексейCyrillic · Russian●23M records
AlexLatin · Portuguese●5M records
אלכסייHebrew · Hebrew●46K records
ᲐლექსიGeorgian · Georgian●15K records
ΑλεξGreek · Greek●227 records
อเล็กซิสThai · Thai●37 records
ԱլեքսArmenian · Armenian●11 records
알렉세이Hangul · Korean●5 records

7 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Alex in BR Brazil, US United States, PE Peru and 16 more, Алексей in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan, TR Türkiye and 3 more, Олексій in UA Ukraine and Oleh in PL Poland.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

English and Scottish short form of pAlexander, now somewhat less popular in England than pAlex.

Sources 1

  • A concise dictionary of first names

Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Alec is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
RU Russia#530,334,16711M rec.—#5Алексей250
UA Ukraine#156,130,8236M rec.—listedОлексій144
PE Peru#56467,948229K rec.—84KAlex105
US United States#166350,5692.6M rec.1 in 949351KAlex602
TR Türkiye#323310,5526.4K rec.——Алексей66
BR Brazil#79294,567△145K rec.1 in 719312KAlex233
GB United Kingdom#126281,434215K rec.—5Alex325
AR Argentina#423202,92499K rec.—834Alex123
AU Australia#113185,861147K rec.—199Alex331
FR France#322150,370188K rec.1 in 451150KAlex383
PH Philippines#116149,699121K rec.——Alex146
MX Mexico#294144,656131K rec.—5Alex197

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English217K74%
  • Spanish16K6%
  • Portuguese13K5%
  • French11K4%
  • 4.5K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English216,66974%
Spanish16,0906%
Portuguese13,4475%
French11,2854%
4,5162%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Alec is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name47K records spelled Alec13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, France, Philippines

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French

    Also written Álec, Aléc, Àlec, Alëc, Áleç

  • Hindi given name2.6K records spelled Alec7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu, Bangla

    Also written Aleč

  • Russian given name1.1K records spelled Alec32 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Poland, United States, North Macedonia

    Languages: Russian, Polish, Macedonian

    Also written Алек, Alek, Алёк, Алэк, Aleḳ

  • Czech given name471 records spelled Alec4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia, United States, Slovakia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Czech, Slovak

    Also written Aléc, Alēc

56 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Alec is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, A diminutive of the male given name Alexander, from Ancient Greek, of Scottish origin.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Swedish, Alec är ursprungligen en engelsk och skotsk smekform till → Alexander. I den finlands svenska almanackan 11 september.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

  • In English, Greek; short form of Alexander

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • English and Scottish: short form of ALEXANDER , now somewhat less popular in England than ALEX , possibly because of the colloquial pejorative term smart alec . See also ALICK .

    as a word

  • In Welsh, a male given name from Ancient Greek Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

01K2K3K4K1900195020003.4K · 1995

Show as table
Alec in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
188011
18817
18828
18835
18847
18859
18865
18875
18889
189011
18916
18925
18935
18946
18955
189612
18976
18995
190015
19015
19029
19037
190414
190512
19066
190711
190810
190915
191018
191115
191221
191337
191447
191557
191636
191769
191859
191960
192067
192169
192260
192356
192450
192553
192643
192754
192835
192926
193037
193121
193233
193332
193432
193523
193628
193738
193825
193930
194032
194136
194239
194334
194434
194536
194653
194770
194856
194953
195050
195155
195270
195351
195442
195554
195675
195776
195881
195999
1960100
196191
196275
196376
1964114
1965116
1966117
196793
196898
196994
1970105
1971105
197288
197385
197460
197580
197697
197794
197896
197991
1980125
1981131
1982147
1983203
1984252
1985290
1986377
1987446
1988426
1989603
1990978
19911,539
19921,866
19932,090
19943,322
19953,420
19963,308
19973,137
19983,356
19992,892
20002,479
20012,155
20021,749
20031,526
20041,333
20051,127
2006982
2007872
2008774
2009730
2010669
2011659
2012606
2013626
2014624
2015665
2016617
2017575
2018521
2019518
2020470
2021390
2022346
2023290
2024274
2025234

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 144 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

190019502000Alec Douglas-Home, b. 1903Alec Issigonis, b. 1906Alec Guinness, b. 1914Alec McCowen, b. 1925John Entwistle, b. 1944Alec Jeffreys, b. 1950Alec Sulkin, b. 1973Alec Burks, b. 1991Alec Benjamin, b. 1994Alec Peters, b. 1995

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 82 sources across 45 countries.

Official registers attesting Alec
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202049K#911
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20241.8K#445
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20221.1K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.1K#7,638
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—708#2,569
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—696#11,650
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020422#911
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—389#2,359
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—333—
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—322#3,747
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)2020254—
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—237#7,920

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 705 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Alec?
We estimate roughly 1.0 million people bear Alec (counting its spellings and scripts) across 11 countries in our records.
In which country does Alec have the most bearers?
Alec is most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is most often spelled алексей.
How common is Alec compared with other names?
In Russia, Alec is the 5th most common given name of 418,751 given names recorded there.
Is Alec a male or female name?
Alec is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Alec mean?
Recorded meaning: English and Scottish short form of pAlexander, now somewhat less popular in England than pAlex.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/alec

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Alec” — the 5th most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Alec parses inside a full name →