Alexis Family History

French and West Indian (mainly Haiti): from the personal name Alexis of Greek origin ultimately from Greek alexios ‘helping defending’. The personal name owed its popularity in the Middle Ages to Saint Alexi(u)s. The historical Saint Alexis is said to have lived in the 4th–5th centuries in Edessa (an early center of Christianity in Syria).

His cult was also popular in the Eastern Church which accounts for the frequency of the Russian personal name Aleksey. American shortened form of any of various Greek derivatives of the personal name Alexis (see 1 above) e.g. Alexiadis a patronymic formed with the suffix -adis a variant of the classical -ades and Alexopoulos.

Americanized form of cognates of 1 above and their derivatives from other languages e.g. Italian Alessio and Serbian and Croatian Aleksić (see Aleksic).