Bill
given name · Latin script
Meaning: (i) from the medieval male personal name Bill, or a shortening of various Germanic compound names; (ii) maker of bladed agricultural implements
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bɪl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bill is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 864(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.2K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 1.5K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #566 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 608 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 864 (inferred from the name graph)
77,823 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
(i) from the medieval male personal name Bill, or a shortening of various Germanic compound names; (ii) maker of bladed agricultural implements
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Bill, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bill 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #232 | 77,823 | 1 in 4.3K | 78K | Bill | 608 |
| CA Canada | #144 | ≈44,000 est. | ≈1 in 864 | 2 | Bill | 273 |
| GB United Kingdom | #396 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 17 | Bill | 270 |
| IT Italy | #628 | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 26 | Bill | 70 |
| AU Australia | #316 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 3 | Bill | 248 |
| NZ New Zealand | #193 | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Bill | 129 |
| SG Singapore | #210 | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Bill | 86 |
| IE Ireland | #211 | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Bill | 98 |
77,823 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Bill 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, from OE bil(l) ‘sword’, or possibly ON Bildr; more commonly metonymic for Biller; first attested Willelmus filius Bille 1301 SRY
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Old English personal name; surviving in Bill
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Altered short form of ) William, not used before the 19th century. The reason for the change in the initial consonant is not clear, but it conforms to the pattern regularly found when English words BILL BILLIE beginning with ware borrowed into Gaelic. The nickname ‘King Billy’ for William of Orange is an early example from Ireland which may have influenced English usage. Pet forms: Billy, Billie.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A written list or inventory. (Now obsolete except in specific senses or set phrases; bill of lading, bill of goods, etc.)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Bill är ursprungligen en engelsk smekform till → William. Bekanta namnbärare är Bill Gates (f. 1955), en av Microsofts grundare, och den tidigare amerikanske presidenten Bill Clinton (f. 1946). Båda heter dock officiellt William. En känd svensk namnbärare är skådespelaren Bill Skarsgård (f. 1990).
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
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)
- William Hannab. 1910USnot in their usual nameAmerican animator (1910–2001)
- Bill Shanklyb. 1913GBScottish footballer and manager (1913-1981)
- William Shatnerb. 1931CAnot in their usual nameCanadian actor (born 1931)
- Bill Haydenb. 1933AUformer Governor-General of Australia from 1989 to 1996
- Bill Russellb. 1934USAmerican basketball player (1934–2022)
- Bill Cosbyb. 1937USAmerican actor and comedian (born 1937)
- Bill Clintonb. 1946USPresident of the United States from 1993 to 2001 (born 1946)
- Bill Nighyb. 1949GBBritish actor (born 1949)
- Bill Fristb. 1952USAmerican physician, businessman, and politician
- Bill Ritterb. 1956USAmerican politician
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 84 sources across 44 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 78K | #680 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 300 | #680 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 18 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1986 | 5 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2014 | 3 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 1 | #2,319 |
Reference works 8
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 are other forms of the name Bill?
- In the etymology graph, Guillermo, Willie and Guilherme are forms of the same name in other languages; Billy and Billie are recorded short or pet forms; it is recorded as a short form of William.
- What does the name Bill mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) from the medieval male personal name Bill, or a shortening of various Germanic compound names; (ii) maker of bladed agricultural implements Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Bill a male or female name?
- Bill is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Bill have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 78 thousand people named Bill, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bill.
- How common is the name Bill?
- In the United States, the national register counted 77,823 people named Bill in 2020, about 1 in 4.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Bill compared with other names?
- In the United States, Bill is the 232nd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Bill?
- A machine transcription gives /bɪl/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Bill?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/billThe 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, “Bill” — the 232nd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.