Allison
About 322,944 American babies have been named Allison since 1880, most of them around 1994. In 2025 it ranked 103rd. About 311,000 Allisons are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 30.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Allison boys named Allison
Girls and boys called Allison
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Allison crossed from boys to girls in 1943, and has stayed there for 83 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 100% girls, which is roughly where it still is.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 115 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 322,944
- Estimated living today
- 311,000
- Median age today
- 30
- Peak year
- 1994
- Best rank
- 34th
- Rank in 2025
- 103rd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 319,119 / 3,825
How old the living Allisons are
born that year still alive today
Of the 322,944 babies given the name since 1880, about 311,000 are alive — 96 in every hundred. Roughly 78,000 of them are children and 5,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1995 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin a surname
From a Middle English diminutive form of Alan, Alexander.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Allisons
- Allison Janney (born 1959)American actress
- Allison Mack (born 1982)American former actress
- Allison Williams (born 1988)American actress, comedian and musician
- Allison Schmitt (born 1990)American swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, world champion, world record-holder
- Allison Tolman (born 1981)American actress
- Allison Pineau (born 1989)French handball player
- Allison Miller (born 1985)American actress
- Allison Iraheta (born 1992)singer, musician
People named Allison with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Allison is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Allison is most concentrated in Nevada (1.4×), New Hampshire (1.4×), Alaska (1.4×), Delaware (1.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1994
The most popular girls’ names the year Allison peaked:
Allison elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Allison | 5,520 | 145th |
| Italy girls | Allison | 803 | — |
| Scotland girls | Allison | 777 | 93rd |
| Ireland girls | Allison | 583 | 164th |
| England and Wales girls | Allison | 241 | 1,785th |
| Belgium girls | Allison | 225 | 224th |
| Switzerland girls | Allison | 84 | 652nd |
| Poland girls | Allison | 2 birth registrations | 711th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Allison: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Allison | 29 | 0.002% | 597th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Allison | 30 | 0.007% | 359th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Allison | 25 | 0.038% | 84th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Allison is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.04% of children were given it – 25 of them.
Allison: rank by region
In 2024, Allison was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Allison | 654 | 7 |
In 2023, Allison was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Allison | 8 | 1 |
In 2024, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Allison appears in the lists for Province of West Flanders (190th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Allison by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 4 | 551st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Allison among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Allison | 14 | 26 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Allison lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 470 women called Allison were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balears, Illes | Allison | 25 | 0.040 | 1,521 |
| Palmas, Las | Allison | 20 | 0.034 | 2,298 |
| Burgos | Allison | 6 | 0.033 | 1,473 |
| Navarra | Allison | 11 | 0.032 | 1,727 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Allison | 17 | 0.031 | 2,228 |
| Rioja, La | Allison | 5 | 0.030 | 1,693 |
Listed in 25 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 27 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Allison against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.