In 2025, 97 US boys were named Alister, making it the 1,689th most common boys’ name of the year, down 39 places from #1,650 in 2024. That is 5 fewer than the 102 boys named Alister in 2024. Its best rank for boys was #1,330, reached in 2022. That year also had the most boys given the name: 141. For comparison, it was #1,815 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
Social Security card records list Alister in 42 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 1924 with 5 babies. In all, 1,664 US babies have been given the name, 0.3% of them girls and 99.6% boys. Its busiest decade was the 2010s, with 741 babies named Alister.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 1,034 US boys were named Alister; the busiest of those years was 2022, with 141. In 2025 that was about 1 in 17,609 of the boys in SSA’s list for the year.
Among the states, Alister ranked highest in Indiana in 2025, at #953 for boys there. It was not in the top 100 of any state. Related spellings in the SSA files include Alastair (1,364 babies since 1880), Alistair (4,088 babies since 1880) and Allister (1,256 babies since 1880). Rarer spellings such as Aleister, Alastor and Alaster are summarised on this page.