Last name: ALEXANDER

Back
Welcome at Geneanet!

Welcome at Geneanet!

With Geneanet, find your ancestors from home, create your family tree for free, and explore and share your family history. Genealogy has never been easier, thanks to our database of 8 billion individuals, and our community of enthusiasts.

Discover Geneanet

All you have to know about the last name ALEXANDER

Last name frequency

ALEXANDER : This last name is indexed 713,558 times on Geneanet!

Origin of last name

ALEXANDER : 1: Scottish English German and Dutch: from the personal name Alexander classical Greek Alexandros which probably originally meant ‘repulser of men (i.e. of the enemy)’ from alexein ‘to repel’ + andros genitive of anēr ‘man’. Its popularity in the Middle Ages was due mainly to the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) - or rather to the hero of the mythical versions of his exploits that gained currency in the so-called Alexander Romances. The name was also borne by various early Christian saints including a patriarch of Alexandria (c. 250–326 AD) whose main achievement was condemning the Arian heresy. The Gaelic form of the personal name is Alasdair which has given rise to a number of Scottish and Irish patronymics for example McAllister. Alexander is a common personal name in Scotland often representing an Anglicized form of the Gaelic name. In North America the English form of the surname has absorbed cognates from other languages e.g. Spanish Alejandro Italian Alessandro Arabic or Assyrian/Chaldean Iskandar and Iskander and their derivatives e.g. Greek patronymic Alexandropoulos.2: Jewish: from the adopted personal name Alexander (see 1 above) or shortened from the eastern Ashkenazic (originally Slavic) patronymics Aleksandrovich or Alexandrowicz.

Learn more

Variants of last name

The spelling of names may have changed over the centuries. Knowing these names variants will help you build your family tree.

Search a name

Discover your ancestors and build your family tree step by step through billions of data included in our members' family trees and through civil records.

Most popular first names

Most indexed places

Most indexed countries

Available collections for this name