Willy
Willy is a boy's name that peaked in 1993, when it was the 1,400th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 3,949th. About 3,000 Willys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 35.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Willy boys named Willy
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 4,053
- Estimated living today
- 3,000
- Median age today
- 35
- Peak year
- 1993
- Best rank
- 1,400th
- Rank in 2025
- 3,949th
- First recorded
- 1884
- Girls / boys
- 116 / 3,937
How old the living Willys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 4,053 babies given the name since 1884, about 3,000 are alive — 74 in every hundred. Roughly 630 of them are children and 460 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1990 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Willys
- Willy Brandt (1913–1992)German politician (SPD), chancellor of West Germany (1969–1974) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
- Willy Caballero (born 1981)Argentine association football player
- Willy Sagnol (born 1977)French football manager
- Willy van de Kerkhof (born 1951)Dutch association football player
- Willy Messerschmitt (1898–1978)German aircraft designer and manufacturer
- Willy Boly (born 1991)French-Ivorian footballer
- Willy Claes (born 1938)Belgian former politician
- Willy Mairesse (1928–1969)racecar driver
People named Willy with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Willy is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Willy is most concentrated in California (4.4×), New York (3.5×), Florida (2.1×), Texas (2.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1993
The most popular boys’ names the year Willy peaked:
Willy elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Willy | 18,670 | 89th |
| Norway boys | Willy | 2,118 | 63rd |
| Belgium boys | Willy | 24 | 1,094th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Willy by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 9 | 434th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Willy among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Willy | 7,247 | 10,320 |
| the Netherlands boys | Willy | 1,772 | 3,343 |
| Finland boys | Willy | 64 | 105 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Willy lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 274 men called Willy were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barcelona | Willy | 55 | 0.019 | 2,462 |
| Madrid | Willy | 63 | 0.018 | 2,455 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Willy | 18 | 0.018 | 2,928 |
| Balears, Illes | Willy | 11 | 0.018 | 2,901 |
| Bizkaia | Willy | 9 | 0.016 | 2,307 |
| Palmas, Las | Willy | 9 | 0.015 | 4,144 |
Listed in 14 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 38 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Willy against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.