William

Where William comes from

From Middle English William, from Anglo-Norman Willame, from Old High German Willahelm, from Proto-Germanic *Wiljahelmaz (> Latin Gulielmus), from Proto-Germanic *wiljô (“will”) + *helmaz (“helmet”), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European roots *welh₁- (“to choose, wish, want”) and *ḱel- (“to cover, conceal, save”) respectively. Cognate with Dutch Willem, German Wilhelm, etc.; cognate borrowings outside of Germanic include Guillaume and Guillermo.
— Wiktionary's entry for William
  • 3 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1564
    William Shakespeare born
    English playwright and poet
  2. 1757
    William Blake born
    English poet and artist
  3. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #2 among boys — 9,532 babies in the first year on record.
  4. 1920
    Peak, #2
    50,146 babies named William — more than any year before or since.
  5. 2011
    The comeback
    Back to #3 after sinking to #20 in 1992.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from the Germanic languages popular since the Norman Conquest.
Namesakes
  • William Shakespeare · English playwright and poet, 1564–1616
  • William Blake · English poet and artist, 1757–1827
  • William Butler Yeats · Irish poet and playwright, 1865–1939
  • William Howard Taft · 27th President of the United States from 1909 to 1913, 1857–1930
  • William Faulkner · American writer, 1897–1962

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.