Will

See also: will

English[edit]

Shortened from William or, less often, from other given names beginning with Wil-, such as Wilfred or Willard.

Will

A male given name, a shortening of William; also used as a formal given name.
- 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 136”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
  Make but my name thy love, and love that still, / And then thou lov'st me, - for my name is Will.
- 1998, Nick Hornby, About A Boy, Victor Gollancz, published 1998, →ISBN, page 208:
  One of his neighbours opposite, a nice old guy with a stoop and a horrible little Yorkshire terrier, called him Bill - always had done and presumably always would, right up till the day he died. It actually irritated Will, who was not, he felt, by any stretch of the imagination, a Bill. Bill wouldn't smoke spliffs and listen to Nirvana. So why had he allowed this misapprehension to continue? Why hadn't he just said, four years ago, "Actually my name is Will"?
A surname originating as a patronymic.

diminutive of William

Will (plural Wills)