Wilm

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from Wilhelm, from *wilja- 'will' + *helm- 'helmet, protection'

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

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

Wilm is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany
  • USUnited States
  • CACanada

Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from Wilhelm, from *wilja- 'will' + *helm- 'helmet, protection'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Where in the world(measured from records)

Recorded in:

No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.

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)

Wilm 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 German, Shortened patronymic from Wilhelm; stem contracted, with suffixal variants. 752 bearers.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, Patronym zu Wilhelm: willo/wille 'Wille' + helm 'Helm'; stark verkürzte Form, 14 Types/8153 Tokens; Muster: Auflösung der Kompositionsfuge und Reduktion auf -m/-ms/-mes/-msen.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, Kurzform zu Wilhelm; zeigt die Auflösung historischer Kompositionsfugen. Bearer count: 8153.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, zu Rufname Wilhelm (Willem)

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

  • In German, ) Willm: männl. Vom., durch

    as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

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)

18001850190019502000Nicolai von Wilm, b. 1834Eberhard Wilm, b. 1866Alfred Wilm, b. 1869Grace Gridley Wilm, b. 1877Johann Michael Wilm, b. 1885Ernst Wilm, b. 1901Carlo Wilm, b. 1950Clarke Wilm, b. 1976

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 Mr Wilm,
InformalHi Wilm,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 24 sources across 11 countries.

Official registers attesting Wilm
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000287#64,750
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020283#73,776
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010265#73,215
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—37#129,205
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)195127—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)198123—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)196119—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)193117—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)192114—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)190114—
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202412#53,184
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)202610—

Reference works 5

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 Wilm mean, and where does it come from?
from Wilhelm, from *wilja- 'will' + *helm- 'helmet, protection' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
How do you pronounce Wilm?
A machine transcription gives /wɪɫm/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Wilm have the most bearers?
Wilm is most frequently recorded in the United States.

What do you want to know about Wilm?

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

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, “Wilm”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Wilm parses inside a full name →