Wilson (name)

This article is about the name. For people who share this surname, see List of people with surname Wilson. For people who share this given name, see List of people with given name Wilson. For other uses, see Wilson (disambiguation).

Wilson is an English, Scottish, and Northern Irish surname, common in the English-speaking world, with several distinct origins. The name is derived from a patronymic form of Will, a popular medieval name. The medieval Will is derived from any of several names containing Old Norse or the first Germanic element wil, meaning "desire".[1] Possibly the most common of these names was William, derived from elements wil and helm, meaning "desire" and "helmet", "protection".[2] The surname Wilson is first recorded in England as Willeson in 1324[3] and in Scotland as Wulson in 1405.[4]

It is the seventh most common surname in England,[5] and tenth most common in the United States,[6] occurring 783,051 times as of 2000.[7] Wilson is also now quite common as a surname in many other countries with a large English-speaking population such as Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand.

Wilson is the third most common surname in Scotland.[8] In the 16th and 17th century the surname was greatly increased in Ulster by the thousands of Scottish settlers and as a result of this settlement it is the most common surname in Northern Ireland.

Wilson can also be a given name.

  1. ^ Wilson Family History, Ancestry.com, archived from the original on 30 December 2010, retrieved 16 February 2012. This webpage cited: Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4.
  2. ^ Hanks, Patrick; Hardcastle, Kate; Hodges, Flavia (2006), A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford Paperback Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 276, ISBN 978-0-19-861060-1.
  3. ^ Reaney, P. H. (1995-08-10). Wilson, R. M. (ed.). A Dictionary of English Surnames (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 495. ISBN 978-0198631460.
  4. ^ Black, George F. (2015-02-12). Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning and History. Churchill & Dunn, Ltd. p. 817. ISBN 978-1626540590.
  5. ^ "Wilson Surname at Forebears". Archived from the original on 2015-01-26. Retrieved 2015-01-07.
  6. ^ "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Smith: America's Most Common Surnames". blogs.ancestry.com. Archived from the original on 2014-12-08. Retrieved 2015-01-08.
  7. ^ "Frequently Occurring Surnames from the Census 2000". census.gov. Archived from the original on 2017-07-29. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  8. ^ "100 Most Common Surnames". 2014-09-25. Archived from the original on 2019-04-18. Retrieved 2019-04-18.