Alan is a name of Scottish origin and it means "fair or handsome chief". It has been used as a personal name since the Middle Ages. The name was popularized by Sir Alan of the Bells, a famous Scottish knight who fought in the Wars of Independence against England in the late 13th century.
The name Alan is also associated with several notable figures throughout history, such as Alan of Dale, a bard who appeared in several medieval English texts, and Alan Turing, the British mathematician and computer scientist who broke the German Enigma code during World War II.
The name Alan experienced a significant rise in popularity from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, with a peak of 102 births in 1912. The number of births remained relatively high until the mid-1960s, with over 5000 births per year between 1947 and 1963. However, there was a noticeable decline starting from the late 1960s, with fewer than 4000 births recorded in 1968. This downward trend continued until the mid-1970s, reaching a low of 2134 births in 1977. Since then, the popularity of the name Alan has fluctuated but has generally remained relatively steady, with between 1500 and 3000 births per year from the late 1970s to the present day. Overall, there have been a total of 359194 births named Alan since 1882.