Alyssa is a name most Americans can place on the spot, and the birth records show why. It sat at 11th for girls in 1998, and in 1999 more than 14,000 babies were given it. The name was everywhere in that decade’s classrooms.
What makes the name interesting now is the drop. Only 680 girls were named Alyssa in 2025, roughly one in every 2,364, so it still sounds familiar to adults while being genuinely uncrowded for a child. The meaning is quietly pleasant too. The spelling follows the alyssum flower, a Greek word meaning without madness, while the sound follows Alice, traditionally read as noble.
Verdict: A warm, easy three-syllable girls’ name that has aged out of its crowd, which leaves it recognizable without being common.
Alyssa Overview
Here is the short version of everything below:
- Meaning: Without madness, from the alyssum flower, plus noble by way of Alice. Older name references also gloss it as joy, moon goddess, and consecrated by God.
- Gender: A girls’ name in practice. Boys do appear in the federal records, but only 432 of them across the whole data set.
- Origin: Greek through the flower name alyssum, with the noble reading inherited from Alice. Name references also file it under German, Hebrew, Irish, Arabic, and French.
- Pronunciation: uh-LIS-uh, with uh-LEE-suh as the less common alternative.
- Popularity: 453rd for girls in 2025 with 680 births, down from 11th in 1998. Half of everyone ever recorded with the name was born by 2000.
- Nicknames: Al, Aly, Alyss, Ay, Lyss, Lyssa, Lyssy.
- Variations: Alice, Alisa, Ally, Allyssa, Alyse, Elissa, Ilysa, Lyssa.
- Namesakes: Alyssa Milano (actress), Alyssa Nakken (baseball coach), Alyssa Naeher (goalkeeper).
What Does Alyssa Mean?
Alyssa means without madness, the sense carried by the alyssum flower whose spelling it follows, and it picks up a second meaning, noble, from its kinship with Alice. Both readings are gentle ones, which is a fair part of the name’s appeal.
The flower line is the documented one. Alyssum comes from the Greek a-, meaning not, joined to lyssa, meaning madness or rabies, because the plant was once believed to cure madness. Sweet alyssum is a low, mat-forming member of the mustard family whose dense clusters of tiny four-petaled flowers smell like honey (1).
Older name references stack other glosses on top of that: joy or great happiness in Hebrew listings, moon goddess in Arabic ones, and consecrated by God where the name is grouped with Elizabeth. Read those as traditional glosses rather than traced roots, and pick whichever one you like.
What is the Origin of the Name Alyssa?
Alyssa is Greek at the root, through the flower word alyssum, and English in practice, since it spread as an elaborated spelling in the Alice family. Name references also file it under these origins:
Each of those entries hands the name a different meaning, which is why no two baby name books say quite the same thing about Alyssa.
The Arabic listing is where the moon goddess reading comes from, and the French one arrives by association with Elizabeth, read as consecrated by God. The Greek line is the one with real documentation behind it, because that is where the flower name begins.
The noble reading comes in separately, through Alice. Irish usage did the same thing from the other direction, treating Alyssa as a local form of Alice and reading it as of noble birth.
How Popular is the Name Alyssa?
Alyssa ranked 453rd among American girls in 2025, with 680 babies given the name, a long way below the 11th place it held in 1998 (2).
The curve is the classic 1990s arc. Alyssa first appears in the federal data in 1950, climbs slowly through the 1970s, accelerates hard through the 1980s, and tops out at 14,036 births in 1999. It has given ground every decade since, and the data marks the name as falling, by 76 percent. Across 73 listed years, 314,606 girls carry it. Point at any year on the chart to read that year’s count.
For a parent choosing today, that shape is the whole story. Alyssa is common in the sense that everyone knows one, and uncommon as a choice, since only about one girl in 2,364 born in 2025 received it. Half of everyone ever recorded with the name was born by 2000, so it reads as the name of a generation rather than the name of a moment. That is usually the point at which a name stops sounding trendy and starts sounding settled.
Names That Moved With Alyssa
Alyssa did not rise alone. Setting it against the other girls’ names in 45 years of federal birth data pulls out a small group whose curves track it closely, which is useful if you are after a sibling name or a second option with the same feel.
The three closest are plotted above. Here is what each name’s own record shows:
- Emily: its births peaked in 1999, the same year as Alyssa, after it held first place in 1996. It ranked 34th in 2025 and is falling.
- Brianna: reached 14th in 1999 and peaked in 2000, one year behind Alyssa. It sits at 222nd in 2025, also falling.
- Paige: peaked in 1995 and reached its best rank, 47th, in 2003. It ranked 346th in 2025.
- Morgan: peaked in 1995, ranked as high as 22nd in 1997, and sits at 312th in 2025.
- Jasmine: peaked in 1993, which was also its best-ranked year at 23rd, and ranks 206th in 2025.
- Hannah: ranked 2nd in 1998 with its births peaking in 2000, and sits 56th in 2025.
The last three are not drawn on the chart. None of this is an official recommendation. It is our reading of public birth data, and what it shows is that these names shared an era and a taste, not a sound.
How Do I Pronounce Alyssa?
Alyssa is said uh-LIS-uh, three syllables with the stress in the middle. That is the version almost every English speaker reaches for on first reading, so the name arrives at school without a pronunciation fight.
A smaller number of families say uh-LEE-suh, closer to Elisa. If you prefer that one, expect to correct people, because the spelling points most readers to the first.
Is Alyssa a Boy or Girl Name?
Alyssa is a girls’ name in practice, and the records are lopsided: 314,606 girls against 432 boys, which puts boys at 0.14 percent of everyone recorded with the name. The most recent year boys appear at all is 2014, when 8 were named Alyssa.
So the name is not literally unused for boys, but nobody will read it as one. The masculine name Alessandro is similar in pronunciation if you love the name Alyssa but would prefer a more traditional boy name.
Variations of Alyssa
Alyssa is spelled several ways, and each shifts either the look or the sound a little:
- Alice (German)
- Alisa (Russian)
- Ally (Greek)
- Allyssa (Greek)
- Alyse (Greek)
- Elissa (Hebrew)
- Ilysa (German, Latin)
- Lyssa (Greek)
Alice sits at the head of the group, Alisa and Alyse tip the sound toward uh-LEE-suh, and Lyssa works as a standalone name rather than only as a short form.
Nicknames for Alyssa
Alyssa shortens easily, which is one reason it wears well from preschool through a resume:
- Al
- Aly
- Alyss
- Ay
- Lyss
- Lyssa
- Lyssy
Lyss and Lyssa do most of the work in daily life, and Lyssy tends to stay with the toddler years. If those feel used up, Alys and Issa both come straight out of the spelling.
Similar Names to Alyssa
These names sit near Alyssa either in sound or in meaning:
- Abigail
- Alecia
- Alex
- Alexa
- Alexandra
- Alicia
- Aliza
- Alyshia
- Carol
- Elizabeth
- Felicia
- Hillary
- Joy
- Merry
- Makenna
Alicia, Alecia, and Alyshia share the opening syllable and the soft double s, so they read as near twins on a class list. Joy and Merry come at it from the meaning side, matching the joy gloss rather than the sound, and Elizabeth belongs here because of the French connection noted above.
Middle Names for Alyssa
Alyssa is three syllables with the stress in the middle, so a short middle name gives the full name a cleaner rhythm than a second long one:
Joy, Gale, May, and Leigh land especially cleanly. Grace and Marie are the traditional pairings if you want something softer, and Joy has the bonus of echoing one of the name’s older glosses.
Sibling Names for Alyssa
If you are planning ahead, siblings tend to sound right when they come from the same era of naming as Alyssa, rather than simply starting with the same letter.
Boy Names:
Girl Names:
The girls’ list overlaps the peer names above on purpose. Paige, for one, rose and fell on almost the same schedule, so the two sit well side by side.
Famous People Named Alyssa
Choosing a name because of someone famous is optional, but it is worth knowing who shares it:
- Alyssa Farah Griffin: American political advisor.
- Alyssa Hyde: YouTuber.
- Alyssa McKay: YouTuber.
- Alyssa Milano: Actress.
- Alyssa Miller: American model.
- Alyssa Naeher: United States goalkeeper who played every minute of all seven U.S. matches at the 2019 World Cup, conceding three goals with four shutouts as the team won the tournament (3).
- Alyssa Nakken: Hired by the San Francisco Giants in January 2020 as the first woman on a Major League coaching staff, and in April 2022 the first woman to coach on the field in a regular season game (4).
- Alyssa Rubino: Canadian singer.
- Alyssa Sutherland: Australian actress.
- Alyssa Wong: American writer.
Alyssa in Popular Culture
Alyssa turns up on screen and on the page as well:
- Alyssa: Cartoon character from Mythix.
- Alyssa: Character from Vampire Gathering.
- Alyssa Moy: Character in Marvel Comics Fantastic Four.
Alyssa FAQs
Short answers to the questions parents ask most about the name Alyssa.
