Williard
Protector of willows, derived from the Germanic elements "wil" (will/desire) and "hard" (brave/hardy).
Name Census estimates that about 268 living Americans carry the first name Williard. It is a predominantly male name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Williard today is around 71 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Williard births was 1915 (61 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Williard. 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 Williard is about 71 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Williards were born before 1965.
People living today
268
~ 1 in 1,278,934 Americans
Peak year
1915
61 babies that year
Average age
71
years old
1982 SSA rank
#5,571
Tracked since 1884
Census
Williard in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 250 people with the first name Williard, which placed it at #33,212 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
#33,212
National first-name rank
People counted
250
250 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
72.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Williard
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Williard is White at 72.8%. The next largest groups are Black (18.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.2%). 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 Williard 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 Williard at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White72.8% · 182
- Black or African American18.0% · 45
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.2% · 8
- Two or more races2.8% · 7
- Hispanic or Latino1.6% · 4
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.6% · 4
Gender
Gender distribution for Williard
Out of the 1,086 babies given the name Williard since 1880, 99.5% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Williard as a male name
- Ranked #7,347 in 1982
- 5 male births in 1982
- Peak: 1915 (61 births)
Williard as a female name
- Ranked #5,571 in 1918
- 5 female births in 1918
- Peak: 1918 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Williard leans strongly male. 248 people counted with this name were male (98.0%), compared with 5 female bearers (2.0%).
Popularity
Williard: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Williard from the 1880s through to the 1980s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1910s, with 301 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1910s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Williard 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 Williard during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Williards live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Ohio recorded the most babies named Williard, while Mississippi, Illinois, North Carolina recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 11 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Williard
The name Williard is an English masculine given name derived from the Germanic elements "wil" meaning "will or desire" and "hard" meaning "brave or hardy." Its origins can be traced back to the Middle Ages, around the 12th century, when it first emerged as a personal name.
Williard is believed to have evolved from the Old French name "Willard," which itself stemmed from the Germanic "Willhart" or "Wilhart." This name was composed of the elements "wil" (meaning will or desire) and "hart" (meaning hardy, brave, or strong). The transition from "Willhart" to "Williard" is likely due to the influence of French pronunciation and spelling conventions during the Norman conquest of England.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Williard can be found in the Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of landowners and tenants commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. This suggests that the name was already in use during the late 11th century in England.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Williard. One of the earliest was Williard of Avranches, a Norman cleric and historian who lived in the late 11th century and served as the chaplain to William the Conqueror. Another early bearer of the name was Williard de Chassenée, a French jurist and legal scholar who lived in the 15th century and authored several influential works on civil and canon law.
In more recent times, Williard Huntington Wright (1888-1939) was an American novelist and literary critic best known for his novel "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man," which explored issues of racial identity and passing. Williard Libby (1908-1980) was an American chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960 for his work on radiocarbon dating, a technique that revolutionized the field of archaeology and geology.
Another notable figure was Williard Motley (1909-1965), an American novelist and writer whose works, such as "Knock on Any Door" and "Let No Man Write My Epitaph," addressed issues of social injustice and racial discrimination in the United States. Williard Uphaus (1919-1994) was an American civil rights activist and member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), known for his non-violent protests against segregation and discrimination.
People
Williard + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Williard 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
Williard: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Williard?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 268 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Williard 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 1,278,934 US residents.
Is Williard a common name?
We classify Williard as "Very Rare". It ranks above 77.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,086 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Williard most popular?
The single biggest year for Williard was 1915, when 61 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Williard is about 71 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Williard in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 250 people with the name Williard, or 0.08 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #33,212 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 Williard 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 Williard?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Williard leans strongly male. 248 people counted with this name were male (98.0%), compared with 5 female bearers (2.0%). 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 Williard?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Williard is White at 72.8%. The next largest groups are Black (18.0%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.2%). 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 Williard most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Williard in the 2020 Census, accounting for 72.8% (182 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 Williard in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Williard a male name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Williard in the SSA data are male. 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 Williard still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Williard 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 Williard 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 named Williard?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.