Williams

surname · Latin script

Meaning: English/Welsh surname meaning "son of William"

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/wiʎiamz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Williams is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Jamaica it is the most common surname.

rarermore common
  • JMJamaica≈1 in 101(inferred from the name graph)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 188
  • USUnited States1 in 205

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈5,700,000 people, est.

#35 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

4 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
678 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 28 (inferred from the name graph)

St. Vincent & Grenadines

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

WilliamsLatin(measured from records)
উইলিয়ামসBengali(measured from records)
უილიამსიGeorgian(measured from records)
윌리엄스Hangul(measured from records)

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

English/Welsh surname meaning "son of William".

Sources 1

  • sanames.co.za — South African surnames

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Williams counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Williams is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈5,700,000 est.≈1 in 246—Williams66
US United States#31,625,2521 in 2051.6MWilliams678
GB United Kingdom#3≈350,000 est.≈1 in 188—Williams441
NG Nigeria#97≈220,000 est.≈1 in 991—Williams145
EG Egypt#170≈170,000 est.≈1 in 619—Williams51
JM Jamaica#1≈28,000 est.≈1 in 101—Williams77
GY Guyana—11,4321 in 6611K—31
VC St. Vincent & Grenadines—3,5791 in 283.6K—20
GD Grenada—2,0151 in 562K—25
KN St. Kitts & Nevis—1,4621 in 371.5K—47

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025); Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025; St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Williams is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written William-S, Will-Iams

  • Spanish surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, United Kingdom, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Wïllïäms, Williäms, William-S, William'S, ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶i̶a̶m̶'̶s̶

  • French surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written William''S, William'S, William-S

  • Polish surname18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, Czechia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Croatian

    Also written Уилямс, Uilyams, Vilijams, Уилиямс, Уйлямс

  • Greek surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom, South Africa

    Also written Ouiliams, Γουίλιαμς, Ουιλιαμς, Γουιλιαμς

  • Indonesian surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Malaysia

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay, Malagasy

    Also written Wîllïãmš, Wïlliams, William'S

91 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Williams is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, Americanized given name used as surname form

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • In English, ‘son of William’.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • In English, Ralph Vaughan, see Vaughan

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • In English, from Welsh Gwilym

    as a nameWelsh Surnames

  • Winston(e) v. Trewin Winnv. Gwyn

    as a nameWelsh Surnames

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1850190019502000William Carlos Williams, b. 1883Tennessee Williams, b. 1911Hank Williams, b. 1923Billy Williams, b. 1929Betty Williams, b. 1943Jody Williams, b. 1950Chris Williams, b. 1968Venus Williams, b. 1980Michelle Williams, b. 1980Serena Williams, b. 1981

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalDear Williams,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 127 sources across 60 countries.

Official registers attesting Williams
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.6M#3
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.6M#3
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020001.5M#3
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 2025202511K#3
VC St. Vincent & GrenadinesElectoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025)20253.6K#1
GD GrenadaGrenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 202520252K#4
KN St. Kitts & NevisSt Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 202620261.5K#1

Reference works 7

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Williams mean, and where does it come from?
English/Welsh surname meaning "son of William". Recorded by sanames.co.za — South African surnames.
How common is the name Williams?
In the United States, the national register counted 1,625,252 people named Williams in 2010, about 1 in 205 residents.
How common is Williams compared with other names?
In Jamaica, Williams is the most common surname of 50,451 surnames recorded there.
In which country does Williams have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 5.7 million people named Williams in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled williams.
Where is Williams most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Williams is densest in St. Vincent & Grenadines — about 1 in 28 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
How do you pronounce Williams?
A machine transcription gives /wiʎiamz/ (IPA) for English.

What do you want to know about Williams?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/williams

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Williams” — the most common surname in Jamaica. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Williams parses inside a full name →