First Name Terms - William Genealogy

The growing trend among today's young parents is discovering unusual, exotic or new pop names for baby boys. But any intrepid genealogist will tell you, there's a lot to be said for good old common first names. Names steeped in grandiose history, spectacular heritage and well established pedigree. Further, boys with popular names can use this to their advantage to attract new friends. One classic example is - William.

William enjoys backslapping camaraderie with lots of buddies, who like calling his pet names - Will or Bill (Wim in German). His Scottish pals prefer using slang forms - Billy or Willie. The English phonetic pronunciation is WIL-yem/WIL-ee-em.

Wilhelm was its original, Germanic root, comprising 'wil' meaning desire and 'helm' as in helmet. William of Gellone was a cousin of Charlemagne, the 8th century Frankish warlord. In the 11th century, the Norman invasion of England, led by William the Conqueror, was extremely unpopular with his new English subjects. By contrast, William's name proved to be massively popular. Within a century, it was number one in England's Top Hit Names Chart.

The Norman King introduced a lot of new names - and titles - into England. Others include Henry, Robert and Richard. But William stubbornly remained the country's favorite boy's name for centuries (eventually being overtaken by John). Mercifully, cruel King William proved less durable than his name, becoming a chubby and bloated old Conqueror, who fell off his horse on his last conquest, rupturing his internal organs sufficiently to survive several days, on his back, in severe agony.

Until this time, there was no need for family or surnames. Smaller populations inhabiting tiny villages, left little room for confusion. But when a few names became trendy among the growing population, Confusion became the big new name. Names were frequently passed from father to son. To minimize confusion, given names were adapted, sometimes by literally spelling out relationships. Thus Williamson was named William's son (or something like that) planting the roots of surnames; also Will-KIN-son. Other first-surname forms, developed from associating local events or descriptive characteristics with newborns. From this, it seems likely that the name Willcock (& Willcox) was given to a baby boy, born in the vicinity of a particularly large rooster! (Please email me if you can verify or add to this supposition?)

There are also English forms for baby girls: Wilma, Willa, Billie.

William remained in the Top 2 most popular given names, until the early 20th century. In the US, it's currently the fifth most widely used name (registered 2009).


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Chris Barber is the author of the genealogy handbook, 'Who Do You Think You REALLY Are?' Find great genealogy tips and advice in his free minicourse, and discover the easy methods you will need to begin and continue your own William family tree research. Download for free now at http://www.genealogyofsurnames.com/.