Name Awesome

Willy

#4,040 in 2025Boys' name

Will + helmet, through William

Willy has been given to 4,053 babies in the U.S. since 1884. In 2025 it ranked #4,040 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 1993, with 69 recorded.

Babies named Willy, 2025

1 in 123,000

Willy over time, 1880–2025

BoysGirls
02040608018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Willy: meaning, origin, and history

Will + helmet, through William

English

What Willy means

Willy belongs to the name family reached through Willy → William. Its meaning is “will + helmet”.

Origin, language, and formation

Willy is used in English, Danish, German, Norwegian, Swedish and Tagalog. Its origins include English.

Willy comes through Indonesian diminutive.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include William, Wilhelm and Wilfried.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Willy is pronounced /ˈwɪli/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 3,937 boys were recorded with the name Willy between 1884 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 69 in 1993; its best national rank was #979 in 1896.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #3,069 in 2020 to #4,040 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #3,679 in 2015 to #4,040 in 2025.

In the United States, 116 girls were recorded with the name Willy between 1913 and 1973. Its highest annual count was 10 in 1947; its best national rank was #3,174 in 1913.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Willy?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 123,000
27 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 63,300
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#4,040
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
85,108 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Willy sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 85,108 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Willy. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Willys were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Willy was born before 1979 — so the typical Willy is around 46 today.

Median birth year
1979
About 46 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
13.6% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
24.8%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
3,068
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 13.6% of all recorded uses (535).

Is Willy 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
+380
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−971
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−361
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.90×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
39.1%
Peak was 1993 (69)
Years since peak
32
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
16.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#979
1896

Spellings of Willy

Willy is not the most common spelling — Willie is, with 33.6% against Willy's 0.29%.

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 Willy is used

Across 1910–2025, Willy was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 33,333 boys, against 1 in 72,010 across all states with data. It was least common in Ohio (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 33,333
  2. 2New York1 in 50,000
  3. 3Alabama1 in 100,000
  4. 4Florida1 in 100,000
  5. 5Texas1 in 100,000
  6. 6Georgia1 in —
  7. 7Illinois1 in —
  8. 8Massachusetts1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Willy has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Willy around the world

Where Willy ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • France
    1900–2025
    #2,343
    in 2025
  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #370
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1991–2024
    #1,614
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1966–2007
    #680
    in 2007

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Willy

People whose public names include Willy, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Willy in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Willy. Linked forms have their own page here.

WilliWillieWillysVilly

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Willy by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#4,040
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 971
Best rank ever
#979
1896
Peak year
1993
69 that year
First recorded
1884
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
3,937
Count in 2025
27

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#3,174
1913
Peak year
1947
10 that year
First recorded
1913
Last recorded
1973
All-time count
116
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Willy

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

WillamWillemWilberWallyWilderWillianWiltonWileyWiliamReillyWilmerWilhelmWilfordTullyWilmarWilliamsWilWillowWilmaSullyWilfredoWillWildeWilkes

Names with a curve like Willy

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Willy, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

ClementeReymundoErasmoFerminEugenioAmadorAbelardoHilarioDemetrioReyesJacintoLino

Sibling names for Willy

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Willy

Top names of 1993, Willy's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1896Boys' names starting with WWilliam Variations & Nicknames