Alicia

Where the name comes from

• Old High German, through Old French and Medieval Latin
  nobility
  adalheit, from adal 'noble' + heit 'kind, sort'
  Alicia began as the Latin spelling of Alice. Alice came from the Old French name Aliz. Aliz was a short form of the Germanic name that also gave us Adelaide. The first part, adal, means 'noble.' The second part, heit, turns an adjective into a noun, so the name means 'nobility' or 'of noble kind.' Clerks in England were already writing Alicia in Latin records in 1256, about 770 years ago.
• Popular belief (not supported)
  Popularly said to come from Greek (sometimes glossed 'truth')
  Greek Alexios (a medieval mix-up)
  This is a popular meaning, not the real origin. In the Middle Ages, people forgot where the name came from and linked Alicia to the Greek name Alexios. Because of this, some Latin records wrote it as Alexia. Historians of names reject the Greek link. The name is Germanic.

Alicia across traditions

• Medieval Europe. Alice and its forms, including Latin Alicia, were among the best-loved women's names in medieval Europe. Unusually, it got there without a major early saint behind it. The related form Adelaide was the name of a Holy Roman empress and saint about 1,000 years ago.
• Irish. The Irish name Ailís came to Ireland with the Anglo-Normans. It was written as Alicia or Alice in English and Latin records.
• British. In the 1800s, British writers favored fancy Latin-style endings. Plain Alice often became Alicia, the same way Cecily became Cecilia.
• Spanish and Latin American. Alicia is the everyday spelling of the name across the Spanish-speaking world, from Spain to Cuba. Two of the best-known women named Alicia in the 1900s were the Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha and the Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso.
• United States. The name was most popular in the 1980s. It ranked #46 among girls' names for that decade, with about 67,000 baby girls named Alicia.

Who carried it

• Saint Adelaide (Empress Adelaide) (About 1,000 years ago): A Holy Roman empress and saint. She bore the older form of the name that later became Alice and Alicia.
• Alicia Alonso (1920–2019): A Cuban ballerina, famous for her Giselle and Carmen. She founded the company that became the National Ballet of Cuba.
• Alicia de Larrocha (1923–2009): A Spanish pianist from Barcelona. She was one of the leading classical musicians of the 1900s.

Forms in other languages

Alice, Alisha, Alix, Ailís, Adelaide, Adelaida

Alicia in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.