Willene
A feminine variant of the English name William or Wilhelmina meaning "resolute protection".
Name Census estimates that about 848 living Americans carry the first name Willene. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Willene today is around 76 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Willene births was 1929 (97 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Willene. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Willene is about 76 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Willenes were born before 1960.
People living today
848
~ 1 in 404,191 Americans
Peak year
1929
97 babies that year
Average age
76
years old
1975 SSA rank
#10,587
Tracked since 1905
Census
Willene in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,225 people with the first name Willene, which placed it at #10,729 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#10,729
National first-name rank
People counted
1.2K
1,225 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
56.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Willene
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Willene is White at 56.1%. The next largest groups are Black (39.1%) and Two or More Races (2.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Willene described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Willene at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White56.1% · 687
- Black or African American39.1% · 479
- Two or more races2.1% · 26
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 14
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.8% · 10
- Hispanic or Latino0.7% · 9
Popularity
Willene: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Willene from the 1900s through to the 1970s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1930s, with 779 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1930s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Willene by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Willene during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Willenes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 13 states and territories. Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas recorded the most babies named Willene, while Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 124 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Willene
The name Willene is derived from the Old English masculine name William, which ultimately comes from the Germanic elements "wil" meaning "will or desire" and "helm" meaning "protection." The name William was introduced into England by the Normans after their conquest in 1066 and quickly became one of the most popular names in medieval Britain.
The feminine form Willene emerged in the 19th century as a variant of the name Willine, which was itself a diminutive of William. While the name Willene is now relatively uncommon, it was more widely used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in the southern United States.
One of the earliest recorded mentions of the name Willene can be found in the 1880 United States Census, where it appears as the given name of a young girl born in Mississippi. However, the name does not seem to have any significant historical or literary references prior to the 20th century.
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Willene was Willene Hendrick (1892-1967), an American politician who served as the Treasurer of South Dakota from 1939 to 1947. Another notable Willene was Willene Gunn (1899-1983), an American vaudeville performer and actress who appeared in several films in the 1930s and 1940s.
In the realm of music, Willene Craddock (1898-1983) was an American country music singer and songwriter who recorded several albums in the 1960s and 1970s. Willene Langley (1917-2008) was a Canadian artist and painter known for her landscapes and portraits of Indigenous people in British Columbia.
Finally, Willene Graham (1917-1996) was an American librarian and author who wrote several books on library science and worked as the director of the Oklahoma City Public Library system for many years.
People
Willene + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Willene as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with W
Other first names starting with W with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Willene: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Willene?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 848 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Willene going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 404,191 US residents.
Is Willene a common name?
We classify Willene as "Very Rare". It ranks above 89% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,928 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Willene most popular?
The single biggest year for Willene was 1929, when 97 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Willene is about 76 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Willene in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,225 people with the name Willene, or 0.41 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #10,729 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Willene in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Willene?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Willene appears almost entirely female. Of the 1,221 people counted with this name, 99.8% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Willene?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Willene is White at 56.1%. The next largest groups are Black (39.1%) and Two or More Races (2.1%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Willene most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Willene in the 2020 Census, accounting for 56.1% (687 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Willene in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Willene a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Willene in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Willene still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Willene in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Willene can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Willene?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.