William (given name)

William is a popular given name of old Germanic origin. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." The name's shortened familiar version in English is Bill, Billy, Will, Willy, or Willie. A common Irish form is Liam. Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Willamette, Wilma and Wilhelmina.

Etymology

William comes ultimately from the given name Wilhelm (cf. Old German Wilhelm > German Wilhelm and Old Norse Vilhjálmr). The Anglo-Saxon form should be *Wilhelm as well (although the Anglo-Saxon chronicle refers to William the Conqueror as Willelm). That is a compound of two distinct elements : wil = "will or desire"; helm; Old English helm "helmet, protection"; > English helm "knight's large helmet".

In fact, the form William is from the Old Norman form Williame, because the English language should have retained helm. The development to -iam is the result of the diphthongation [iaʷ] + [m] in Old Norman-French, quite similar in Old Central French [eaʷ] + [m] from an early Gallo-Romance form WILLELMU. This development can be followed in the different versions of the name in the Wace's Roman de Rou.

William

William may refer to:

Royalty

British

French

The Netherlands

Name

A name is a term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies, not necessarily uniquely, a specific individual human. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning also) and is, when consisting of only one word, a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes called "common names" or (obsolete) "general names". A name can be given to a person, place, or thing; for example, parents can give their child a name or scientist can give an element a name.

Caution must be exercised when translating, for there are ways that one language may prefer one type of name over another. A feudal naming habit is used sometimes in other languages: the French sometimes refer to Aristotle as "le Stagirite" from one spelling of his place of birth, and English speakers often refer to Shakespeare as "The Bard", recognizing him as a paragon writer of the language. Also, claims to preference or authority can be refuted: the British did not refer to Louis-Napoleon as Napoleon III during his rule.

William the Conqueror

William I (Old Norman: Williame I; Old English: Willelm I; c. 1028 – 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 1087. The descendant of Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy since 1035. After a long struggle to establish his power, by 1060 his hold on Normandy was secure, and he launched the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands and by difficulties with his eldest son.

William was the son of the unmarried Robert I, Duke of Normandy, by Robert's mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and his youth caused some difficulties for him after he succeeded his father, as did the anarchy that plagued the first years of his rule. During his childhood and adolescence, members of the Norman aristocracy battled each other, both for control of the child duke and for their own ends. In 1047 William was able to quash a rebellion and begin to establish his authority over the duchy, a process that was not complete until about 1060. His marriage in the 1050s to Matilda of Flanders provided him with a powerful ally in the neighbouring county of Flanders. By the time of his marriage, William was able to arrange the appointments of his supporters as bishops and abbots in the Norman church. His consolidation of power allowed him to expand his horizons, and by 1062 William was able to secure control of the neighbouring county of Maine.