alan
/ˈæl.ən/noun
alan is spelled A-L-A-N: 4 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 28 times per million words in written English, the 3,288th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, alan means “Alternative form of alaunt” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of alan is alans.
How many letters and syllables are in alan?
| Letters | 4: A-L-A-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 28 times per million words; the 3,288th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is alan?
Alan appears 28 times per million words in written English, the 3,288th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce alan?
- /ˈæl.ən/
Alan has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-alan.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-Alan.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with alan?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as alan.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: anal, laan.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of alan
- alans plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does alan mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Alternative form of alaunt.
noun
- 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.
noun
- 1
Initialism of artificial light at night.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Alan in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense member of a Sarmatian tribe:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does alan come from?
From Latin Alānī, from Ancient Greek Ἀλανοί (Alanoí), from Proto-Sarmatian *Āllān.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).