Willem

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Williamson in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 6 more, Will in BR Brazil, SE Sweden, DK Denmark and 2 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 11 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◐

Willem is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Portuguese given name13K records spelled Willem5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Brazil, South Africa, Netherlands, Spain

  Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

  Also written Willèm, Willém

• Hindi given name2.6K records spelled Willem7 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in South Africa, Netherlands, United States, Belgium

  Languages: Hindi, Sinhala, Urdu

  Also written Wîllěm

57 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●

Willem 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 Dutch, a male given name from Proto-Germanic, equivalent to English William

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

• In Swedish, Se Vilhelm.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In German, Patronym zu Wilhelm: willo/wille 'Wille' + helm 'Helm'; niederländisch/belgische Kurz- und Verschleifungsform, 11 Types/3342 Tokens; Muster: Kürzung mit -em/-se(n).

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

• In French, Variante néerlandaise de Guillaume; du germ. will + helm, « volonté/protection ».

  as a name·Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

• In German, Aus dem Rufnamen Wilhelm; niederdeutsch/niederländische Form mit gelöster Kompositionsfuge. Bearer count: 3342.

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

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) — 74 years between 1916–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Willem de Zwijgerb. 1533DEDutch statesman and revolt leader (1533-1584)
• Willem Barentsb. 1550NLDutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer (1550–1597)
• William II, Prince of Orangeb. 1626NLnot in their usual nameprince of Orange and Stadtholder of Holland (1626–1650)
• William III of Englandb. 1650NLnot in their usual nameKing of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1689 to 1702 (1650-1702)
• William I of the Netherlandsb. 1772NLnot in their usual nameKing of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg 1815-1840 (1772-1843)
• William II of the Netherlandsb. 1792NLnot in their usual nameKing of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1840 to 1849 (1792-1849)
• William III of the Netherlandsb. 1817NLnot in their usual nameKing of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg (1817-1890)
• Vincent van Goghb. 1853NLnot in their usual nameDutch painter (1853–1890)
• Wim Kokb. 1938NLnot in their usual nameDutch politician (1938–2018)
• William Alexander of the Netherlandsb. 1967NLnot in their usual nameKing of the Netherlands (born 1967)

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 · 415 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Willem?

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

In which country does Willem have the most bearers?

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

Where is Willem most common?

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

How common is Willem compared with other names?

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

Is Willem a male or female name?

Willem 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 Willem mean?

Recorded meaning: Patronymic to Wilhelm; compositional -helm reduced.