The history of your name

The WILLARD surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 21,183 1557 0.008 78
United States (1880 census) 6,942 870 0.014 139
Change since 1880 +14241 -687 -0.006 -61
Other Countries
Australia 316 4965 0.002 19
United Kingdom 990 5301 0.002 22
Notes

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Classification and Origin of WILLARD

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the WILLARD surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the WILLARD surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of WILLARD in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Black/African American 917 4.33
Mixed Race 314 1.48
White (Hispanic) 250 1.18
Native American/Alaskan 229 1.08
Asian/Pacific 68 0.32
White (Caucasian) 19,406 91.61

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the WILLARD surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of WILLARD in historical publications

One who has a determined disposition, from will, choice, command, and ard, the Teutonic of art, strength, nature, disposition.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.


WILLARD. This family, whose chief habitat is, and has been from the XIII. century, East Sussex and Kent, have a tradition of Norman descent. The name, it is said, was originally Viliard. I see no evidence of this ; and indeed the Saxon, or at least pre-Norman, origin of both name and family is indubitable. Wielard, or Wilard, was a personal name, and it is found in the names of many places, as Wylerdsley, Wyllardssey, Willardby, Willardesham, Willardestone, &o. In Domesday we find the forms Wielardus, AVilardus, Wluard, Wluuard, and Wlward. The lastmentioned occurs in Kent, the county from which the numerous Willards of America deduce themselves. For many speculations on the origin of the name and family, see Willard Memoir, by Joseph Willard, Esq., 8vo. Boston, U.S., 1858.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.


Similar names to WILLARD

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as WILLARD.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for WILLARD

The following words are slight variants of WILLARD that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.