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First name origin & meaning:

Greek: Protector of mankind

First name variations: Alakesander, Alec, Aleck, Alejandro, Alek, Alkeos, Aleks, Aleksey, Alesandro, Alessandro, Alejo, Alex, Alexas, Alexei, Alexio, Alysander, Alexandre, Aleksander, Alick, Alik, Alyc, Alyck, Alyk, Iksander, Ixsander, Sandro, Sander, Sanders, Sandor, Sandy, Sandie, Sacha, Sasha, Xander

Last name origins & meanings:

1. Scottish, English, German, Dutch; also found in many other cultures: 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 (ad c.250–326), 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 patronymic surnames, for example McAllister. Alexander is a common forename in Scotland, often representing an Anglicized form of the Gaelic name. In North America the form Alexander has absorbed many cases of cognate names from other languages, for example Spanish Alejandro, Italian Alessandro, Greek Alexandropoulos, Russian Aleksandr, etc. (For forms, see Hanks and Hodges 1988.) It has also been adopted as a Jewish name.
2. A number of Scotch-Irish families of this name landed at New York in the early 18th century. By 1746, six of them were established in NC. Others came in through Philadelphia, for example Archibald Alexander, who came from Londonderry in northern Ireland in 1736 and established himself in VA.

Famous people who gave their babies this name: Timothy Dalton, Melanie Griffith, Kate Mulgrew, Naomi Watts

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