Alison is a medieval French diminutive of Alice, which goes back to the Germanic Adelheid and means "noble" or "of noble kind". It was a common name in Chaucer's England, survived in Scotland and returned to wide use in the 20th century; bluegrass singer Alison Krauss is a well-known American bearer. Alison ranked number 231 in 2000, peaked at number 228 in 2009 and has slowly declined to number 476 in 2025.