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Alan.

A male given name from the Celtic languages.

4 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

name/ˈæl.ən/
  1. A male given name from the Celtic languages.

  2. A surname.

Where this word comes from

From Old Breton Alan, name of early Breton saints, of disputed origin and meaning; brought to England by Normans. It may have been the name of a Celtic deity, the brother of Bran, Welsh Alawn, Alun. As an early Irish name, perhaps connected with ail (“noble”). Compare French Alain.

noun/ˈæl.ən/
  1. A member of a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.

    historical
Where this word comes from

From Latin Alānī, from Ancient Greek Ἀλανοί (Alanoí), from Proto-Sarmatian *Āllān.

name/ˈæl.ən/
  1. A male given name from Hebrew, variant of Elon.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.