Allison

The surname was thus originally a metronymic, naming a person by reference to their mother rather than father, an unusual feature in medieval English nomenclature.

The form Alice owes its medieval popularity to several royal bearers, including Alice of Champagne, queen consort of Cyprus and regent of Jerusalem in the thirteenth century, and Alice de Lacy, Countess of Lincoln.

The patronymic Allison emerged in northern England and Scotland, particularly along the border, and was carried to Ireland and North America by emigrants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

There are no saints named Allison, though the underlying Saint Adelaide of Italy (931-999), Holy Roman Empress and wife of Otto the Great, gave the root name its Catholic standing.

The transformation from surname to feminine given name happened almost entirely in the United States during the twentieth century.

The Peggy Sue Got Married era of nostalgic American naming was anticipated by the 1956 film adaptation of Grace Metalious’s novel Peyton Place, in which the central character is named Allison MacKenzie.

The Elvis Costello song Alison (1977) and the band Allison reinforced the name in popular culture, while the Buffy the Vampire Slayer character Willow Rosenberg was played by Alyson Hannigan, popularizing alternative spellings.

Allison first entered the United States Social Security Administration top 1,000 in 1946 and climbed steadily to a peak at 30th in 2002.

It currently sits within the top 110. Combined with the variant spellings Alison, Alyson, and Allyson, the name’s overall use is significantly higher.

The name is overwhelmingly North American in distribution, with much smaller use in the United Kingdom, where the simpler Alice has retained dominance.