Willet
UnisexBoys' nameGirls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Willet has been given to 100 babies in the U.S. since 1915. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1926, with 9 recorded. It's used for both sexes: 94% boys, 6% girls all-time.
Babies named Willet, 1940
1 in 461,000
Willet over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
Girls or boys — Willet over time
In 1940, Willet went to 0% girls and 100% boys.
A sex is only published in years it reached five applications, so a stretch at 0% or 100% means the other side stayed under that floor — not that it was never used.
How common is Willet?
Willet had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1940, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1940
- 1 in 461,000
- 5 of 2,302,666 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 232,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1940
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 319,218 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Willet sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1940 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 319,218 children born in 1940 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Willet. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Willets were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Willet was born before 1926 — so the typical Willet is around 99 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 40.4% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 91.5%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 0
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 40.4% of all recorded uses (38).
Is Willet rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1926 (9)
- Years since peak
- 99
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 33.7% average annual change
Spellings of Willet
Willet is not the most common spelling — Willie is, with 67.9% against Willet's 0.01%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Willet is used — girls
Across 1910–2025, Willet was most concentrated in North Carolina — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 931,388 across all states with data.
Most concentrated
- 1North Carolina1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Willet has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Willet by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Willet
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Willet
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.