William
2,240,114 people in America carry this name — ranked #6 of 923.
A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.
Say it WIHL yuhm
2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part
Phonetic transcription
W IH1 L Y AH0 M — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.
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People counted 2,240,114 2020 Census
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Rank #6 Very common
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Per 100,000 741.7 about 1 in 148 people
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As a surname 11,890 ranked #2,962 the other way round
Where William comes from and what it means
Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “helmet of resolution”.
Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.
William through the years
4,159,868 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1947, with 67,146 of them.
Most people carrying it were born in the 1950s. It has been given less often of late.
Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.
Middle names that fit William
Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.
- William John
- William James
- William David
- William Robert
- William Daniel
- William Joseph
- William Richard
- William Thomas
Better avoided
- William Michael — runs together
- William Matthew — runs together
- William Mark — runs together
Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.
Never out of use
William has been given in every decade on record — no fashion lifted it and none has dropped it.
Is William a boy's or a girl's name?
As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.
How William is spelled
William is how 98% of them spell it — 2,280,009 people answer to the sound.
- William 98%
- Wilson 1.7%
Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.
Names about as common
The nearest entries above and below by number of people.
Names built the same way as William
Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.
- Michael 3,476,721
- David 2,813,017
- Robert 2,759,339
- Mary 1,768,343
- Daniel 1,607,193
- Joseph 1,600,667
- Richard 1,575,998
- Thomas 1,506,606
- Matthew 1,315,151
- Andrew 1,075,513
Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.
The same name elsewhere
- Myne Lith
- Mine German
- Mimi French
- Will English
- Minne German
- Minka Polish
- Wille Swiss
- Willy English
- Willie Scottish
- Mynette Lith
- Minette French
- Minella English
- Mimmeli Swiss
- Guillot French
Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.
Full names people carry
- William Johnson ≈ 12,600 people
- William Jones ≈ 9,300 people
- William Garcia ≈ 7,800 people
- William Miller ≈ 7,600 people
- William Davis ≈ 7,300 people
- William Wilson ≈ 5,300 people
- William Anderson ≈ 5,100 people
- William Thomas ≈ 5,000 people
The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.
The states where William is most common
In South Carolina the name is given 1.8 times as often as it is across the country.
- South Carolina ×1.8
- Delaware ×1.7
- Alabama ×1.7
- the District of Columbia ×1.7
- Kentucky ×1.6
Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.
Try it Compare Two Names
Put another name beside this one.
One of those is not in the census file.
Where this page gets its numbers
- Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
- Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
- Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.
Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Teutonic origin