Alan (name)
Encyclopedia : A : AL : ALA : Alan (name)
Gender: Masculine
Usage: Scottish, Breton, English
Pronounced: AL-an
Alternative Spellings: Allan, Alen, Allen, Allon
The meaning of this name is not known for certain, though it possibly means either "little rock" or "handsome" in Breton language (Brittany), and "harmony" in some Celtic languages. It was introduced to England by Bretons after the Norman Conquest of England.
Alan from the Irish/gaelige word "alain", meaning handsome, noble or charming. Or handsome, cheerful, at one with creation. Name is also linked to biblical passage found in Proverbs 16:20 of the Old Testament.
Famous Namesakes
- Alan I, King of the Bretons, the Great
- Alan II, Duke of Brittany
- Alan III, Duke of Brittany
- Alan IV, Duke of Brittany, aka Alan Fergant ("the Younger" in Breton language)
- Alan, abbot of Tewkesbury
- Alan Abel, American prankster, writer, and filmmaker
- Alan Abraham, former Lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia
- Alan Alda, US actor, writer, director, science presenter
- Alan Anderson, NBA basketball player
- Alan Anton, Canadian bassist in the Cowboy Junkies
- Alan Arakawa, mayor of the county of Maui, Hawaii
- Alan Arkin, actor, twice nominated for Academy Awards
- Alan Autry, US actor, politician, NFL player
- Alan Ayckbourn, British playwright, director, Professor
- Alan Badel, English actor
- Alan Ball (screenwriter) US Academy Award-winning screenwriter, director, producer
- Alan Barnes (writer) for Doctor Who
- Alan Bates, CBE, knighted British Academy Award nominated actor
- Alan Bean, NASA astronaut, fourth man on the moon, artist
- Alan Beddoe, Canadian artist, war artist, and heraldist
- Alan Beith, British Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament
- Alan Bennett, British author and actor
- Alan Bergman, American lyricist and songwriter for stage and film
- Alan Blinder, American economist
- Alan Blumlein, British inventor of stereo sound and 128 patents
- Alan Bollard, Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand
- Alan Bond (businessman), Australian
- Alan Bond (rocket developer)
- Alan Borovoy, General counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association
- Alan Braxe, French electronic musician
- Alan Bray, British historian and gay rights activist
- Alan Brinkley, Professor of History and Provost at Columbia University
- Alan Brody, American playwright and MIT Professor
- Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, knighted British Field Marshal, World War II
- T. Alan Broughton, US poet
- Alan Brown, Formula One racing driver
- Alan Brownjohn, British poet and novelist
- Alan Budikusuma, Indonesian Olympic Gold Medallist in Badminton
- Alan Bullock, British historian
- Alan Burkehalter, US Admiral and intelligence director
- Alan Burns, Head of Computer Science, University of York
- Alan Bush, British composer and pianist
- Alan Cadman, long serving Australian member of Parliament
- Alan Cameron (classical scholar)
- Alan Cameron (NZ legal scholar)
- Alan Campbell, British Labour MP
- Alan Carney, American vaudevillian, comedian and film actor
- Alan Civil, OBE, British horn player
- Alan Cobham, knighted British aviation pioneer of aerial refueling
- Alan Coleman, prolific British writer, director, and producer of television series
- Alan Colmes, American television and radio political host
- Jeffrey Alan Combs, character actor best known for his horror film roles and his appearances playing a number of characters in the Star Trek franchise
- Alan Coren, British writer and satirist
- Alan Cranston, US Senator
- Alan Crosland, director of the first "talkie" movie, The Jazz Singer
- Alan Cumming, Actor
- Alan Cumyn, Canadian novelist
- Alan Gordon Cunningham, knighted World War II British Army officer
- Alan Dale (singer)
- Alan Dale, actor
- Alan Davis, British writer and artist of comic books
- Alan Davidson (food writer), British diplomat, historian and food writer
- Alan Davies, British comedian and actor in Jonathan Creek
- Alan Dawson, Jazz drummer
- Alan Dell, BBC radio broadcaster
- Alan Dershowitz, Harvard University law Professor and high profile appellate lawyer
- Alan Devine, Irish actor
- Alan Dugan, American poet, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner
- Alan Duncan, British Conservative MP
- Alan Dundes, formative academic folklorist
- Alan Dunnett, British poet
- Alan Ferguson, Liberal member of Australian Senate
- Alan Fersht, knighted British Professor of chemistry
- Alan Fletcher, Australian actor and musician
- Alan Ford, British Actor
- Alan Freed, American pioneer radio rock and roll promoter
- Alan Dean Foster, speculative fiction writer
- Alan Furst, American writer of historical spy novels
- Alan García, President of Peru, 1985-1990
- Alan Gardiner, knighted British Egyptologist
- Alan Garner, OBE, British writer
- Alan Gilbert, Australian historian and University Vice-Chancellor
- John Alan Glennon, US geographer, spelunker
- Alan B. Gold, Canadian Superior Court Chief Justice
- Alan Greenspan, Economist, former US Chairman of the Federal Reserve
- Alan Guth, MIT physicist and cosmologist
- Alan Hale (astronomer), co-discoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp
- Alan Hale, Sr., American movie actor and director
- Alan Hale, Jr., American television actor
- Alan Hamel, Canadian television host
- Alan Haselhurst, knighted British Conservative MP, member Privy Council
- Alan J. Heeger, US Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner
- Alan Henderson, US NBA basketball player
- Alan Henry, British motorsports journalist
- Alan Heusaff, Breton nationalist and linguist
- Alan Hinkes, British mountaineer, summitted all 14 greater than 8000 metre]] mountains
- Alan Hollinghurst, British novelist and poet
- Alan Hood, British solar astronomy Professor
- Alan Hopgood, Australian playwright and actor
- Alan Hovhaness, American composer
- Alan Howarth, CBE, British Conservative MP
- Alan Huckle, modern day British colonial administrator
- Alan Hull, British singer-songwriter, founding member of Lindisfarne
- Alan Hurst, British Labour MP
- Alan Isaacman, US lawyer, won case in the US Supreme Court
- Alan Jerrard, winner of the Victoria Cross for courageous flying in World War I
- Alan Johnson, British Labour MP and cabinet minister
- Alan Jones (Formula 1), Australian Formula One Champion racing driver
- Alan Kane, Canadian author
- Alan Kay, US computer scientist, winner of the Turing Award
- Alan Keen, British Labour and Co-operative Party MP
- Alan Keyes, US politician
- Alan King, American comedian and satirist
- Alan Kohler, Australian financial journalist
- Alan Ladd, American film actor
- Alan Ladd, Jr., American movie producer of Star Wars and Blade Runner
- Alan Lake, British actor
- Alan Lee, British book illustrator and Academy Award winner for Art Direction in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- Alan Leong, member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and once Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association
- Alan Jay Lerner Broadway lyricist and librettist
- Alan Lightman, American physicist, novelist, and essayist
- Alan Lomax, American folklorist and musicologist
- Alan of Lynn, 15th century monk, scholastic
- Alan Macnaughton, Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, 1963 to 1966
- Alan Maitland, Canadian broadcaster
- Alan Matheson, Canadian composer, musician
- Alan McCombes, a leading member Scottish Socialist Party
- Alan Meale, British Labour MP
- Alan Menken, winner of eight Academy Awards for film music composition
- Alan Merrill, American songwriter and musician
- Alan Milburn, British Labour MP
- Alan Millar, Scots philosophy Professor
- Alan Miller, a founder of influential video game company Activision
- Alan Minter, a boxing Middleweight World Champion
- Alan Moir, Australian and New Zealand caricaturist and cartoonist
- Alan Moore, British writer and creator of famous comic books such as "Watchmen" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"
- Alan Moorehead, OBE, Australian born journalist and writer
- Alan Moulder, British record producer
- Alan Mowbray, British and American actor
- Alan Noel Latimer Munby, British author, librarian
- Alan North, American actor
- Alan E. Nourse, Science fiction author
- Alan Oppenheimer, American voice actor and actor
- Alan Page, NFL MVP football player, lawyer, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice
- Alan J. Pakula, American film director, writer, producer
- Alan Park, Canadian comedian and political satirist
- Alan Paton, South African novelist and early foe of Apartheid
- Alan Pearlman, theatre director
- Alan Prince, US Professor of linguistics
- Alan Poul, US television producer
- Alan Rachins, American screen and voice actor and writer
- Alan Ramsey, Australian columnist
- Alan Rawsthorne, British composer
- Alan Reed, American actor and voice actor (Fred Flintstone)
- Alan Reid, Scots Liberal Democrat MP
- Alan Rickman, actor of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films
- Alan Ridout, British composer
- Alan Rough, Scots footballer, radio presenter
- Alan Rosenberg, Emmy Award winning actor and President of the Screen Actors Guild
- Alan Rubin, American horn player
- Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Grauniad
- Alan Schechter, Professor Emeritus of political science
- Alan Scholefield, South African writer
- Alan Seymour, Australian writer
- Alan Shearer, Former footballer for Newcastle United and England.
- Alan Shepard, First American in space, fifth man to walk on the moon
- Alan Sillitoe, English novelist and poet
- Alan Silva, British-American free jazz double bassist and keyboard player
- Alan Silvestri, Academy Award nominated and Grammy Award winning film music composer
- Alan Simpson (politician), British Labour MP
- Alan K. Simpson, US Senator
- Alan Smith, Former Striker converted to Midfielder for Manchester United
- Alan Smithee, a pseudonym used by film directors when control has been taken away from them
- Alan Soble, American philosopher
- Alan Sokal, American physicist
- Alan Sonfist, US artist
- Alan Splet, Academy Award for Sound Editing winner and sound designer
- Alan Stevenson, Scots lighthouse engineer
- Alan Stivell, Breton musician
- Alan Stretton, Australian Major General
- Alan Tam, a Hong Kong Cantopop singer and film actor.
- Alan Taylor, American historian
- Alan J. P. Taylor, renowned and controversial British historian
- Alan Templeton, statistical geneticist
- Alan Thicke, Canadian actor and television personality
- Alan Thompson, professional footballer for Celtic F.C.
- Alan Tonks, former Metro Toronto Chairman
- Alan Trachtenberg, Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Yale University
- Alan Turing, British mathematician and pioneer computer scientist
- Alan Villiers, Author, adventurer, photographer and master mariner
- Alan Walker (writer on music), English-Canadian writer on music
- Alan Walker (academic)
- Alan Walters, knighted Professor of economics
- Alan Watkins, Welsh political columnist
- Alan Watts, philosopher, comparative religionist, writer, speaker
- Alan West, knighted British Royal Navy Admiral, First Sea Lord
- Alan Wheatley, British film and television actor
- Alan White (Yes drummer)
- Alan White (Oasis drummer)
- Alan Whitehead, British Labour MP
- Alan Williams, Welsh Labour MP, "Father of the House"
- Alan Wilder, British electronic musician, composer, arranger and record producer, member of Depeche Mode
- Alan Wilson, knighted British scientist
- Alan Wren, drummer for The Stone Roses
- Alan Yentob, British television executive
- Alan Young, film, television and voice actor
- Alan Danan, employee walking arrung
See also
Sources
Campbell, Mike. "Behind the Name: Alan." http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=alan ."Alan - meanings, origins, and famous namesakes." Baby Name Network. 2005. RhinoWorks, Inc. http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=alan .
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