Willow

loc · English · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Willow is a name, most frequently recorded in the United States. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: From the name of the tree (Old English welig), noted for its grace and the pliancy of its wood.

rarermore common
  • AUAustralia1 in 1.3K◐
  • USUnited States1 in 15K
  • CACanada1 in 117K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

551K ●

in 5 countries

Sources
276 ●

29K records

Official registry-verified

Meaning & origin●

From the name of the tree (Old English welig), noted for its grace and the pliancy of its wood.

Sources 1

  • A concise dictionary of first names

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Willow is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States340,39021K rec.—33KWillow276
AU Australia46,4723.5K rec.—673Willow97
CA Canada1,879766 rec.—56Willow75
GB United Kingdom2871.5K rec.—1.5KWillow91
RU Russia2841 rec.——Willow8
IE Ireland960 rec.—130Willow11
BS Bahamas60 rec.——Willow1
FR France—0 rec.—860—2
SE Sweden—13 rec.—224—10
BR Brazil—0 rec.—98—1
NZ New Zealand—83 rec.—93—39
FI Finland—7 rec.—72—6

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English389K70%
  • Spanish5961%
  • French (New Caledonia)2421%
  • Hebrew1351%
  • Hindi651%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English389,07270%
Spanish5961%
French (New Caledonia)2421%
Hebrew1351%
Hindi651%

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◐

Willow is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish name1.9K records spelled Willow2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Panama, Mexico

    Also written Wîllow

54 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●

Willow is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, Any of various deciduous trees or shrubs in the genus Salix, in the willow family Salicaceae, found primarily on moist soils in cooler zones in the northern hemisphere.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • English: from the tree, Old English welig , noted for its grace and the pliancy of its wood.

    as a word

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●

02K4K6K1900195020005.2K · 2021

Show as table
Willow in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1890–2025
Yearrecords
18905
19025
19048
19068
19075
19089
19095
19126
191312
191411
191523
191620
191710
191815
191914
192020
192123
192215
192327
192426
192527
192635
192723
192830
192926
193019
193124
193226
193324
193423
193514
193624
193713
193822
193919
194016
194115
194212
194314
194423
194521
194620
194724
194818
194912
195014
195113
195210
195317
195412
195521
195616
195714
19588
195913
196015
196113
196212
196312
196420
196511
196614
196710
196815
196917
197020
197133
197232
197343
197454
197553
197666
197764
197875
197962
198060
198141
198240
198332
198430
198537
198622
198721
198826
198935
199029
199155
199254
199351
199484
199590
1996125
1997169
1998250
1999310
2000301
2001379
2002546
2003537
2004519
2005542
2006578
2007771
2008797
20091,054
20101,122
20111,575
20121,839
20132,079
20142,410
20152,811
20163,125
20173,569
20183,933
20194,609
20204,401
20215,195
20225,072
20234,765
20244,672
20254,763

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 121 years between 1890–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1940196019802000Diana Thomas, b. 1959Willow Bay, b. 1963Kaitlin Olson, b. 1975Willow Johnson, b. 1977Willow Geer, b. 1981Willow Pill, b. 1995Willow Shields, b. 2000Willow Smith, b. 2000

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●

Attested in 61 sources across 32 countries.

Official registers attesting Willow
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202033K#1,168
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20254.8K—
GB United KingdomONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024)20241.5K#21
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020931#27,432
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)2024860#566
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010819#28,998
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000814#27,802
AU AustraliaAustralian national given names (aggregated state BDM)2023673—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)2024353—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020323#1,168
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—224#4,825
AU AustraliaAU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD)2025188#23

Reference works 3

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 696 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Willow?
Our records include 550,902 bearers of Willow across 5 countries — a sample of the full distribution.
In which country does Willow have the most bearers?
Willow is most frequently recorded in the United States, where it is most often spelled willow.
What does the name Willow mean?
Recorded meaning: From the name of the tree (Old English welig), noted for its grace and the pliancy of its wood.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/willow

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Willow”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Willow parses inside a full name →