Alissa is a spelling variant of Alyssa, which is usually traced to the alyssum flower, from the Greek for "without madness", and is also understood as a form of Alice, "noble". The double s spelling was especially popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Alissa ranked number 279 in the United States in 2000, left the top 1000 in the 2010s and stands at number 1942 in 2025.