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Adeliza and Adelaide were brought over to Britain by the Normans in the 11th century. Adeliza of Louvain (1103-1151) — also known as Adelaide, Adelais, Aleidis and Alice — was Queen of England from 1121 to 1135, as the second wife of King Henry I.
The figure of Bele Aaliz or Bele Aelis "Fair Aelis" was a common theme in medieval courtly romances and chansons. As Sylvia Huot puts it: "Beautiful, amorous, and inclined to song, Fair Aelis appears in numerous pieces; her behaviour generally involves rising early, getting dressed up in her finery, and going outside to gather flowers or meet her lover."
Fair Aelis was a common subject for both popular and courtly dance-singers* and, in one of his sermons, Stephen Langton (d.1228), Archbishop of Canterbury interpreted Bele Aelis allegorically as the Virgin Mary.*
Perhaps it is not surprising then that it was the most successful and popular girls' name of the Middle Ages. Redmonds' survey of 1000 names from ten English counties 1377-81 puts Alice at #1 and it was still in the top 5 by the early 16th century, as Smith-Bannister's rankings show below:
1538-49: #4; 1550-9: #3; 1560-9: #4; 1570-9: #5; 1580-9: #7; 1590-9: #7; 1600-9: #5; 1610-9: #7; 1620-9: #5; 1630-9: #6; 1640-9: #6; 1650-9: #7; 1660-9: #8; 1670-9: #9; 1680-9: #9; 1690-1700: #12.
By the 13th century, Alice had emerged as the standard English vernacular form, but was most commonly Latinised as Alicia in official documents. As spelling was not standardised at this time, Alys, Ales and Alis are also frequently found. By the 16th century, the short form Alse (Alce, Als, Allse) is also prevalent in records.
Unsurprisingly, Alice gained several diminutive forms using the French diminutive suffixes -el, -in, -on, -ot etc. The surname Allott and Allettson come from adding the -et/-ot suffixes, and Alison and Ellison comes from Alis + on. The hypochoristic form Nalle was also used as a pet-name.
This popular usage continued throughout the following centuries and had only declined slightly by the 18th century. According to Leslie Dunkling's ranks, Alice was #11 in 1700 and #19 in 1800.
In 1843, Queen Victoria reclaimed the name for royalty when she named her second daughter Princess Alice Maud Mary. Writing to her uncle, King Leopold I, in May 1843, she said: "Our little baby, whom I am really proud of, for she is so very forward for her age, is to be called Alice, an old English name, and the other names are to be Maud (another old English name and the same as Matilda) and Mary, as she was born on Aunt Gloucester's birthday."
Princess Alice proved herself to be an admirable and practical woman. She nursed her father in his final months, acted as secretary to her mother, championed women's causes and nursing, managed field hospitals during the Austro-Prussian war and scandalised her mother by breastfeeding her children herself.
One of her nieces, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (1883-1981), was named for her, as was one of her granddaughters, Princess Alice of Battenberg (1885-1969), who married Andrew of Greece and Denmark and is mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The latter seems to have inherited her grandmother's passion for nursing and good works. She devoted herself to charity works in Greece, particularly the Red Cross, organised shelters for orphans and soup kitchens, sheltered Jewish refugees during WWII, and later founded an Orthodox nursing order of nuns.
By 1860, perhaps thanks to the influence of Princess Alice, the name had risen to the top 10 in England and Wales. It rose further, to #4, in 1870 after the publication of Lewis Caroll's popular Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 which was a publishing sensation, beloved by children and adults alike (including Queen Victoria) and to this day, it has never been out of print.
Birth rankings in England and Wales:
1850: #13
1860: #8
1870: #4
1880: #3
1890: #5
1900: #5
1904: #8
1914: #13
1924: #30
1934: #66
After so many centuries barely out of the top 10 in England, Alice began to decline in popularity in the 1920s and was out of the top 100 by 1944. In Scotland, Alice had earlier been less popular than in England and Wales (ranking #21 in 1900) but this perhaps helped its longevity, as it was still #53 in 1950, falling put by 1975.
Interestingly, Scotland was also early to embrace Alice's medieval diminutive form, Alison. In 1900, Alison ranked #66 in Scotland while it was barely scraping into the top 300 in England and Wales. By 1950, Alison was #40 in Scotland and, in 1975, Alison was #17 and Allison #93.
In England and Wales, Alison began to grow in popularity once Alice had waned first entering the top 100 at #53 in 1954 and rising to #14 in 1964, #21 in 1974 and #54 in 1984, after which it left the top 100.
And, in a reversal of roles, just as Alison waned, Alice itself began to rise again, reaching the top 100 once again at #83 in 1984 and rising sharply in popularity to #18 in 1994.
click to enlarge
In Scotland, Alice returned to the top 100 at #85 (72 births) in 1992. Its popularity fluctuated in the bottom half of the top 100, never ranking higher than #72, up until 2013.
It rose to #48 (98 births) in 2015 and #46 (106 births) in 2016.
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