Wilson
- Pronunciation
- [Wil-son]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Son Of Will. Surname.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Wilson
Wilson is an English patronymic surname meaning "son of Will," with Will serving as the long-established short form of William — a name of Germanic origin built from wil ("will, desire") and helm ("helmet, protection"). Patronymic surnames of this type — son of X — were systematically formed in medieval England, and Wilson became one of the more widely distributed family names in the English-speaking world. The migration of surnames into given-name use is a thoroughly English and American tradition, and Wilson follows a proud lineage of surname-to-forename conversions that includes names like Parker, Cooper, and Harrison.
As a given name in the United States, Wilson carries the relaxed confidence of a classic surname-name — slightly formal on paper, but immediately friendly in daily life. It benefits from strong presidential associations and from the general early-21st-century trend toward transferring distinguished surnames onto the birth certificate as first names. The nickname Will is an effortless fallback, connecting Wilson smoothly to one of the most timeless short names in the English language.
Wilson first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 and peaked in 2004 at its best rank of #465. It has remained a consistent presence ever since, reaching #644 in 2024 with 431 births that year, and has accumulated over 11,116 top-1000 births across its tracked tenure. That long, steady chart presence — over two decades without falling out of the top-1000 — signals a name with genuine durability rather than flash-in-the-pan appeal.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Wilson
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Wilson by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2004 with 547 boys named Wilson (boy rank #465 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #673 for boys (405 US births). That's 208 places below its 2004 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Wilson Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Wilson the strongest states are Alabama, Massachusetts, Arkansas.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | #396 | 129 |
| 2 | Massachusetts | #459 | 100 |
| 3 | Arkansas | #460 | 31 |
| 4 | Connecticut | #465 | 24 |
| 5 | Mississippi | #493 | 54 |
| 6 | South Carolina | #495 | 89 |
| 7 | Tennessee | #503 | 138 |
| 8 | Maryland | #522 | 82 |
| 9 | Minnesota | #524 | 97 |
| 10 | Iowa | #549 | 39 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michigan | #883 | 60 |
| 2 | Illinois | #860 | 77 |
| 3 | Florida | #783 | 157 |
| 4 | Pennsylvania | #748 | 93 |
| 5 | Texas | #744 | 320 |
| 6 | Missouri | #741 | 66 |
| 7 | Indiana | #735 | 51 |
| 8 | Oklahoma | #711 | 23 |
| 9 | California | #683 | 383 |
| 10 | Washington | #669 | 92 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Wilson in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Wilson?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Wilson to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Wilson against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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