Willis - Origin and Meaning of the name

[ 2 syll. wi-(l)lis, wil-l-is ] The boy name Willis is pronounced as WIHLIHS ^KEY. Willis is used mostly in English and its language of origin is Old English. The meaning of Willis is son of Will. The first name is derived from the English surname. The first name was adopted from the 19th century. See also the related forms, the English and French William and the English Will.

Willis is uncommon as a baby boy name. At the modest height of its usage in 1919, 0.112% of baby boys were named Willis. It was #131 in rank then. The baby name has seen a substantial decline in frequency since then, and is currently used on a very light scale. In 2007, within the family of boy names directly related to Willis, the English and French William was the most widely used.

Baby names that sound like Willis include the English and Scottish Wallace, the English Wallis, and the English Wilkie.

^KEY: Pronunciation for Willis: W as in "we (W.IY)" ; IH as in "it (IH.T)" ; L as in "lee (L.IY)" ; IH as in "it (IH.T)" ; S as in "sea (S.IY)"

A famous person named Willis is Willis O'Brien, Animator, born 2 March 1886, Oakland, California.

Popularity Trend
for Willis
from 1900 to 2007

Variant Popularity Chart
for Willis
in 2007