Wallace is a Scottish surname from the Old French waleis, meaning "foreigner" or "Welshman", originally used for the Celtic-speaking Britons of Strathclyde. The national hero William Wallace made it a patriotic name in Scotland, and in America it belonged to the poet Wallace Stevens and the claymation inventor Wallace of Wallace and Gromit. Wallace climbed from number 1298 in 2000, peaked at number 882 in 2018 and, after dipping out for a year in 2023, ranks number 964 among boys' names in 2025.