Where Does the Willems Surname Come From?

Clerks wrote Williams in many ways, and Willems is one that stuck. In origin, the name means “Son of William”.

• Regional accents shaped spellings long before dictionaries fixed them.
• Before spelling was fixed, Williams was also written Willems.
• The 2010 US Census counted 2,707 people named Willems, ranking it number 11,597 among American surnames. That puts it inside the top 25,000 US surnames. French birth records list 1,863 children named Willems between 1891 and 2000. The name became more frequent over the century.

Family crest and blazon

Heraldry is personal: arms associated with the Williams surname were borne by specific families, and sharing the name does not mean sharing the blazon. Get the complete Willems report, with a museum-style coat of arms.