What's In A Name: Alexander, Alice

Alexander-This male name, also found as a family name, is from transliterated Greek "Alexandros," which means, "defender of men" (perhaps in the more general sense, "mankind?"). Its shortened forms are "Alex" and "Alec." It is a fairly common name in English, as well as in many European countries. The most famous person with the name is "Alexander the Great," the king of the ancient Greek kingdom, Macedon (Macedonia), although there have been other rulers, as well as popes, with the name, all of which undoubtedly helped to spread the name and to reinforce its usage. The most common female form is "Alexandra."

Alice-This female name goes back to the name "Adalheidis," a Germanic name meaning, "of the nobility," or, "noble one." English once had the adjective, "æþele" (þ=th), which meant, "noble;" that is, "of the nobility"), as well as a variety of words from the same source, all having to do with "nobility, the nobility." The borrowing of "noble," of Latin derivation and borrowed from Latin-based French, overtook the original English form, which was closely related to the "Adal" part of the Germanic name. Old French absorbed a form of "Adalheidis" from Frankish, a Germanic dialect/language, which gave French "Alelaide," then eventually ,"Alais/Aaliz." English took the name from French, seemingly initially as "Alys." One of Queen Victoria's daughter's was named Alice, and she married the Grand Duke of Hessen. She was the mother of "Alix of Hessen," with "Alix" being the best German rendering of her mother's name. She became the Russian Empress, as she married Tsar Nicholas II, and she was given the name by which she is best known, "Alexandra." Overall, "Alice" has been a fairly common name in English for a number of centuries, and who hasn't heard of "Alice in Wonderland?" 

I consulted the following, so for more information on any of the names see, "A World Of Baby Names" by Teresa Norman, published by Perigee/Penguin Group, New York, 2003.

WORD HISTORY:
Via-This word, distantly related to "way," an original English word from Germanic, goes back to Indo European "wegh," which had the notion of "movement;" thus also, "transport/carry." This gave Latin "via," meaning, "road, pathway," although there "may" have been an intermediary Latin word from which "via" was taken???  The noun also spawned the use of the word for, "by way of, from," which is the more typical meaning in English. It was borrowed into English in the latter part of the 1700s from Latin.