Alexander
male given name
Alexander (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος) is a masculine name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Aleksander, Oleksandr, Oleksander, Aleksandr, and Alekzandr. Related names and diminutives include Iskandar, Alec, Alek, Alekos, Alex, Alexsander, Alexandre, Aleks, Aleksa, Aleksandre, Alejandro, Alessandro, Alasdair, Sasha, Sandy, Sandro, Sikandar, Skander, Sander and Xander; feminine forms include Alexandra, Alexandria, and Sasha.
Etymology
The name Alexander originates from the Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros; 'defending men' or 'protector of men'). It is a compound of the verb ἀλέξειν (aléxein; 'to ward off, avert, defend') and the noun ἀνήρ (anḗr, genitive: ἀνδρός, andrós; meaning 'man').
The earliest attested form of the name, is the Mycenaean Greek feminine anthroponym 𐀀𐀩𐀏𐀭𐀅𐀨, a-re-ka-sa-da-ra, (/Alexandra/), written in the Linear B syllabic script. Alaksandu, alternatively called Alakasandu or Alaksandus, was a king of Wilusa who sealed a treaty with the Hittite king Muwatalli II c. 1280 BC; this is generally assumed to have been a Greek called Alexandros.
The name was one of the epithets given to the Greek goddess Hera and as such is usually taken to mean "one who comes to save warriors".
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q923. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1280.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alexander” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.