Definition
1. In pleading and procedure: A word placed between two names in a legal document — as "John Smith, alias John Simpson" — to indicate that both names describe the same person. The term signals that the individual is known by, or has used, more than one name, without itself establishing which name is the true or legal one.
2. In writ practice: A second writ issued in the same cause after a prior writ of the same kind was returned without effect. The alias writ derives its name from the Latin phrase sicut alias præcepimus ("as we have before commanded"), inserted into its text to signal that an earlier command had already been issued. If the alias writ also failed, a further writ — the pluries — would follow.
3. Colloquially and in modern criminal law: A false or assumed name used by a person, particularly to conceal identity. This usage has migrated from informal speech into formal legal contexts, appearing in charging instruments, warrants, and judgments.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Otherwise called; also known as; formerly known as" — used to connect different names of the same person, or to indicate an assumed identity.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Otherwise; otherwise called — a term used in legal proceedings to connect the different names of any one who has gone by two or more."
The gap between common and legal meaning here is narrower than it appears. Both Webster's and Wiktionary track the pleading use closely, because the word migrated from legal Latin into ordinary English carrying its legal sense with it. The meaningful distinction is in writ practice: no ordinary speaker would recognize "alias" as a term of procedural sequence — the second instrument in a series of writs escalating toward compliance. That specialized procedural meaning is invisible in common usage.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Alias writ: The second writ in sequence, issued when the original writ produced no result. Identified by the sicut alias clause.
Alias dictus: The full Latin phrase, "otherwise called," from which the standalone alias is derived. Older legal documents use alias dictus; modern practice uses alias alone.
Alias summons / alias execution / alias fi. fa.: Specific procedural instruments named by the alias convention — a second summons, a second execution, or a second writ of fieri facias issued after the first failed of effect.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter alias in two entirely distinct contexts, and conflating them produces errors. In criminal records, indictments, and warrants from any period, alias identifies a person by multiple names — essential for confirming identity across documents. In civil procedure records, alias signals something different: procedural sequence. An alias writ tells you the first writ failed and a second was required. The presence of an alias fi. fa. in a file, for instance, indicates the original execution was returned nulla bona and the creditor pressed forward.
In historical sources, alias dictus is the form you will encounter through roughly the eighteenth century; the contraction to alias alone becomes standard in the nineteenth. When reading pre-1800 materials, do not assume that alias dictus and alias are indexing differently — they are the same concept at different stages of contraction.
The alias writ sequence (original → alias → pluries) matters for dating and sequencing historical litigation files. A file containing only a pluries writ, without its predecessors, is incomplete. Researchers reconstructing litigation timelines should treat alias writs as evidence that at least one prior writ exists — or existed — somewhere in the record.
Modern criminal databases and dockets use alias loosely to mean any assumed, street, or nickname, including names the subject never formally adopted. This is looser than the pleading sense, which requires actual use of the name, not mere attribution.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries agree on both core meanings — the pleading identity marker and the procedural writ sequence — but weight them differently. Burrill gives the most thorough treatment of the writ use, tracing the Latin formula to Bracton and the Register of Original Writs. Rapalje & Lawrence connect it explicitly to the nulla bona return on a fieri facias, which is useful for understanding the procedural trigger. Black's (2nd ed.) is the first of the shelf sources to name the colloquial "fictitious name" meaning explicitly, noting it has become familiar usage — evidence that by the early twentieth century the criminal-law sense had arrived in formal dictionaries.
Anderson is notable for explaining the transition from alias dictus to alias alone, describing it as a long-established contraction rather than a modern innovation. No shelf source adequately addresses the loose modern usage in criminal databases and dockets, where alias has expanded beyond its historical bounds.
Jurisdictional Note
Alias writ practice in its classical form is largely obsolete in American federal courts and most state systems, displaced by modern civil procedure rules that allow renewed process without a separately labeled instrument. The term survives most actively in criminal charging documents across jurisdictions, where alias as a name-identifier remains universal.