Alison is a female given name that has many kinds of spellings. It was originally in medieval Norman. It was derived from the name "Alice". The name was first recorded in Scotland in the 12th century. The variant spelling "Allison" ranked 228 for female names for the United States in 1990, and was the 45th most popular for girls between 2005 and early 2010s. As "Allison", the name was used for tropical storms for 1989, 1995 and 2001. The 2001 tropical storm was incredibly damaging, which in turn caused the name to be retired the following year.