French: from the personal name Alexis, ultimately from Greek
alexios ‘helping’, ‘defending’. The personal name owed its
popularity in the Middle Ages to St. Alexi(u)s, about whom many
legends grew up. The historical St. 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
Aleks(e)i. In North America this surname has probably absorbed
Russian and other cognates, mentioned in Hanks and Hodges (1988).
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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