Where the Alexander name comes from

Alexander comes from the Ancient Greek Ἀλέξανδρος, a compound of the verb ἀλέξειν, to ward off or defend, and ἀνδρός, the genitive of the noun for man, so the name reads as defender of men. Its earliest attested form is the Mycenaean Greek feminine name a-re-ka-sa-da-ra, written in the Linear B syllabic script. Alaksandu, a king of Wilusa, sealed a treaty with the Hittite king Muwatalli II around 1280 BC, and he is generally taken to have been a Greek called Alexandros. The conquests of Alexander the Great, king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia, carried the name across the Greek world, and most later Alexanders were named after him directly or indirectly.

The surname reached English through Middle English Alexander and Alexandre, which came in turn from Latin Alexander. In Scotland it arrived by a second route, as an Anglicised form of the Scottish Gaelic Mac Alasdair, son of Alexander. That Scottish line makes Alexander a patronymic, and it is carried most widely in the Highlands.