Willoughby
A masculine name likely of Anglo-Saxon origin meaning "willow tree town".
Name Census estimates that about 157 living Americans carry the first name Willoughby. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 72.2% of registrations being male. The average person named Willoughby today is around 21 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Willoughby births was 2021 (17 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Willoughby. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Willoughby with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Willoughby started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
People living today
157
~ 1 in 2,183,149 Americans
Peak year
2021
17 babies that year
Average age
21
years old
2024 SSA rank
#10,194
Tracked since 1915
Census
Willoughby in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 332 people with the first name Willoughby, which placed it at #27,518 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
#27,518
National first-name rank
People counted
332
332 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
77.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Willoughby
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Willoughby is White at 77.4%. The next largest groups are Black (10.2%) and Hispanic (5.4%). 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 Willoughby 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 Willoughby at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White77.4% · 257
- Black or African American10.2% · 34
- Hispanic or Latino5.4% · 18
- Two or more races5.1% · 17
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.5% · 5
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 1
Gender
Gender distribution for Willoughby
Willoughby is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 309 total registrations, 223 (72.2%) were male and 86 (27.8%) were female.
Willoughby as a male name
- Ranked #14,119 in 2024
- 5 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1923 (15 births)
Willoughby as a female name
- Ranked #10,194 in 2024
- 10 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2020 (10 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Willoughby on both sides of the split. Of the 328 people counted with this name, 223 were male (68.0%) and 105 were female (32.0%).
Popularity
Willoughby: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Willoughby from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 82 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Willoughby remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Willoughby 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 Willoughby during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Willoughby
The name Willoughby is of English origin and can be traced back to the medieval period. It is derived from the Old English words "willo" meaning willow tree, and "by" meaning a town or village. The name, therefore, likely referred to someone who lived near or was associated with a willow tree settlement.
In the Middle Ages, the name Willoughby was particularly common in the counties of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, where several villages and townships bore the name. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, which mentions a landowner named Willoughby in Lincolnshire.
Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, the Willoughby family was a prominent noble family in England. Sir William Willoughby (c. 1370-1409) was a renowned military commander who served under King Henry IV during the Hundred Years' War. Another notable figure was Sir Hugh Willoughby (c. 1490-1554), an explorer who led an ill-fated expedition to the Arctic in search of the Northeast Passage.
In the 16th century, the name Willoughby appeared in several works of literature, including William Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night," where a character named Sir Toby Belch refers to a fictional character called "Willoughby."
During the 17th century, Willoughby was a relatively common given name among the English gentry. One prominent figure was Francis Willughby (1635-1672), a pioneering naturalist and ornithologist who contributed significantly to the study of birds and their classification.
In the 18th century, the name was borne by several notable individuals, including Willoughby Bertie, 4th Earl of Abingdon (1740-1799), a British peer and politician, and Willoughby Prescott (1783-1859), an English painter and engraver known for his landscape and topographical works.
Moving into the 19th century, one of the most famous bearers of the name was Willoughby Hamilton Noyes (1805-1873), an American lawyer and politician who served as the 13th Governor of Ohio from 1866 to 1868.
People
Willoughby + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Willoughby 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
Willoughby: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Willoughby?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 157 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Willoughby 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 2,183,149 US residents.
Is Willoughby a common name?
We classify Willoughby as "Very Rare". It ranks above 70.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 309 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Willoughby most popular?
The single biggest year for Willoughby was 2021, when 17 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Willoughby is about 21 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Willoughby in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 332 people with the name Willoughby, or 0.11 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #27,518 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 Willoughby 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 Willoughby?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Willoughby on both sides of the split. Of the 328 people counted with this name, 223 were male (68.0%) and 105 were female (32.0%). 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 Willoughby?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Willoughby is White at 77.4%. The next largest groups are Black (10.2%) and Hispanic (5.4%). 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 Willoughby most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Willoughby in the 2020 Census, accounting for 77.4% (257 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 Willoughby in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Willoughby a male name?
Yes, 72.2% of people registered as Willoughby 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 Willoughby still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Willoughby 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 Willoughby 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 common is the name Willoughby?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.