I attend a small Lutheran church with pretty stained-glass windows. It’s a beautiful place filled with kind people and, as my youngest daughter recently pointed out, a surprising number of men named Bill.
The comment came after I told her a story about one of the older gentlemen at church. She looked at me and said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Is his name Bill? Every guy here is named Bill.” A slight exaggeration, but not entirely wrong. The name does seem to echo off the walls of the fellowship hall.
Her comment and the way she said it made me laugh. You probably would have laughed too. She has a great sense of humor and a very logical mind, which will come into play in a moment. I replied, “Well, you know that Bill is a nickname for William, right?”
She nodded. “I know, but I don’t like it. There’s no ‘B’ in William. It should be Billiam.”
She had a point. “Billiam” would at least make phonetic sense. So why is Bill a nickname for William?
The Curious Case of Bill From William
The answer may be found in the history of the English language and a tradition of rhyming nicknames that dates back to the Middle Ages. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, William was a hugely popular name in England, thanks in part to William the Conqueror. With so many Williams running around, people naturally started shortening it to make conversations easier.
The first short form was “Will.” That makes sense—it’s a simple shortening of the first syllable. But then came a playful trend in the Middle Ages: rhyming nicknames. People liked to create variations of names by rhyming the shortened version. Will became Bill, just like:
- Robert became Rob, which became Bob
- Richard became Rick, which became Dick
- Margaret became Meg, which became Peg
This may sound odd now, but at the time, it was a common linguistic pattern. It wasn’t about logic; it was about rhythm and sound.
Tradition Sticks
Once “Bill” caught on as a rhyming variation of “Will,” it simply stuck, and over generations, it became a name in its own right. Many people named William are introduced as Bill from childhood and never shake it, even if there’s no “B” in sight.
So next time my daughter walks into church and hears someone talking about Bill, she can take comfort in knowing that this nickname has deep historical roots, not just church directory dominance.
Who knows, maybe “Billiam” will catch on in a future generation.