William
At the 2020 census, 11,890 Americans bore the surname William — 2,962nd out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 25,100.
By the numbers
- People
- 11,890
- Rank
- 2,962nd
- How common
- 1 in 25,100
- Per 100,000
- 4.0
Where the name 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname William described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called William
- William, Prince of Wales (born 1982)heir apparent to the throne of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth Realms
- George William, Elector of Brandenburg (1595–1640)Elector and Margrave of Brandenburg, Duke of Prussia
- Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden (1655–1707)Margrave of Baden-Baden and chief commander of the German imperial army
- Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg (1578–1653)Duke of Jülich and Berg
- Warren William (1894–1948)Broadway and Hollywood actor
- George William, Hereditary Prince of Hanover (1880–1912)Hanovarian Royal
- William William (1731–1811)signer of the US declaration of independence
- Joseph Frederick William (1717–1798)Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen
People named William with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like William
Also a first name
William has been given to 4,215,725 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1947. See it as a given name.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.