(male) Probably the most successful of all the Old French names of Germanic origin that were introduced to England by the Normans. It is derived from Germanic wil ‘will, desire’ + helm ‘helmet, protection’. The fact that it was borne by the Conqueror himself does not seem to have inhibited its favour with the ‘conquered’ population: in the first century after the Conquest it was the commonest male name of all, and not only among the Normans. In the later Middle Ages it was overtaken by John, but continued to run second to that name until the 20th century, when the picture became more fragmented.
Short forms: Will, Bill.
Pet forms: Willy, Willie, Billy.
Cognates: Irish: Uilliam. Scottish Gaelic: Uilleam. Welsh: Gwilym. German: Wilhelm. Dutch: Willem. Scandinavian: Vilhelm. French: Guillaume. Spanish: Guilermo. Catalan: Guillem. Portuguese: Guilherme. Italian: Guglielmo. Czech: Vilém. Slovenian: Viljem. Hungarian: Vilmos. Lithuanian: Vilhelmas. Latvian: Vilhelms.
English and French: nickname for a tall person, from Old English lang, long, Old French long ‘long’, ‘tall’ (equivalent to Latin longus).
Irish (Ulster (Armagh) and Munster): reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Longáin (see Langan).
Chinese 龙: from the name of an official treasurer called Long, who lived during the reign of the model emperor Shun (2257–2205 BC). his descendants adopted this name as their surname. Additionally, a branch of the Liu clan (see Lau 1), descendants of Liu Lei, who supposedly had the ability to handle dragons, was granted the name Yu-Long (meaning roughly ‘resistor of dragons’) by the Xia emperor Kong Jia (1879–1849 BC). Some descendants later simplified Yu-Long to Long and adopted it as their surname.
Chinese 隆: there are two sources for this name. One was a place in the state of Lu in Shandong province during the Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC). The other source is the Xiongnu nationality, a non-Han Chinese people.
Chinese 郎: variant of Lang.
Cambodian: unexplained.
