Will

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Williamson in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 6 more, Willem in NL Netherlands, FR France, ZA South Africa and 4 more and William in TH Thailand, LA Laos.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Will is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Spanish given name99K records spelled Will22 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Brazil, France, Venezuela

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French

  Also written Will', Wîll, Wïll, Wíll, Wįll

• a separate given name29K records spelled Will2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India

  Also written Wîll

• Polish given name11K records spelled Will19 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Russia, United Kingdom, Poland

  Languages: Polish, Russian, Ukrainian

  Also written Вилль, Билль, Вилл, Вілл, Вілль

• Indonesian given name2.6K records spelled Will2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Philippines

  Also written Wįll

74 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Will is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In English, short form of William; first attested Wille Walt’ 1207 Cur (Nf)

  as a name·A Dictionary of English Surnames

• Short form of William, in use since the early Middle Ages, when it was occasionally used also for various other given names of Germanic origin containing the first element wil ‘will’, ‘desire’.

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

• In English, Used to express the future tense, sometimes with an implication of volition or determination when used in the first person. Compare shall.

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In German, Wohnstättenname zu Will/Wille; univerbierte Form. 10 Belege; zeigt Kurzform.

  as a name·Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

• In English, ndima = dima = lama,ndima =lima hinda, tama yéla; good will, ndi yakpé

  as a word·Vocabulary of the Mende Language

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Will Wrightb. 1891USAmerican character actor
• Will Geerb. 1902USAmerican actor and activist (1902–1978)
• Will Eisnerb. 1917USAmerican cartoonist, writer and entrepreneur (1917–2005)
• Will Sampsonb. 1933USMuscogee Creek actor from Oklahoma (1933–1987)
• Will Pattonb. 1954USAmerican actor
• Will Finnb. 1958USAmerican animator
• Will Forteb. 1970USAmerican actor, comedian, writer (born 1970)
• Will Yun Leeb. 1971USAmerican actor
• Will Mellorb. 1976GBEnglish actor
• Will Sharpeb. 1986GBBritish actor, writer, and director

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 703 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Will?

We estimate roughly 2.6 million people bear Will (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.

In which country does Will have the most bearers?

We estimate about 2.2 million people bear Will in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled williamson.

Where is Will most common?

Will is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 149 people carrying it.

How common is Will compared with other names?

In the United States, Will is the 700th most common given name of 3,122,706 given names recorded there.

Is Will a male or female name?

Will is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Will mean?

Recorded meaning: (i) From the male personal name Will, a pet-form of William.