babynamepicker

Boy Names That Start With W

These are the 48 boy names that start with W, have reached the top 500 as a boy's name at some point since 1880, and still go to boys rather than girls today. Ranked by the number of boys given each name in 2025, most common first.

All 48 names

  1. William #9 10,545
  2. Wyatt #38 6,480
  3. Wesley #52 5,578
  4. Weston #55 5,482
  5. Waylon #56 5,408
  6. Walker #78 4,204
  7. Warren #240 1,471
  8. Walter #251 1,381
  9. Wade #344 948
  10. Wells #345 944
  11. Winston #381 830
  12. Wilder #429 743
  13. Wayne #652 422
  14. Wilson #672 405
  15. Wallace #960 241
  16. Watson #1008 224
  17. Wylie #1176 175
  18. Will #1193 170
  19. Wiley #1222 165
  20. West #1252 159
  21. Willie #1315 147
  22. Warner #1362 137
  23. Woodrow #1644 102
  24. Wilmer #1728 94
  25. Wendell #2145 67
  26. Walton #2421 56
  27. Willis #2539 52
  28. Wayde #2676 48
  29. Willard #2718 47
  30. Weldon #2765 46
  31. Ward #2833 44
  32. Williams #3036 40
  33. Wheeler #3450 33
  34. Wilfred #3757 29
  35. Wilber #3949 27
  36. Wilbur #3949 27
  37. Wellington #4249 24
  38. Wilbert #4857 20
  39. Wilton #5861 15
  40. Webster #6803 12
  41. Wilford #8243 9
  42. Winfield #8910 8
  43. Waldo #10695 6
  44. Wash
  45. Washington
  46. Wilburn
  47. Winfred
  48. Wm

Boy names that start with W in the 2025 data

W is the fourteenth most common first letter for boys born in 2025: 53,352 of them, 3.1% of every boy in the file. It has climbed from sixteenth place a decade ago, and its share has grown from 2.3% to 3.1%.

This list holds the 48 of those names that reached the top 500 as a boy's name at some point since 1880 and are still given to boys rather than girls. The most common today is William, #9 with 10,545 boys in 2025. 6 of the 48 are in this year's top 100, and 43 appear in the 2025 file at all — which takes at least five births, the point below which a name is left out. Together they account for 47,065 of those 53,352 boys — the remainder go to names that have never reached the top 500, each given to a handful of children.

The fastest climber among them is Wells, up from #1,729 in 2015 to #345 in 2025. Wyatt has gone the other way, from #34 to #38. The shortest name here is Wm at 2 letters, the longest Wellington at 10.

Questions about boy names that start with W

What is the most popular boy name that starts with W?

William. 10,545 boys were given the name in 2025, which put it at #9 nationally.

How many boy names start with W?

48 have reached the top 500 as a boy's name and still go to boys today, which is this list. Counting every spelling in the file, 53,352 boys born in 2025 — 3.1% of the total — were given a name starting with W.

Are boy names that start with W getting more popular?

W is gaining ground. It was sixteenth among first letters for boys a decade ago with 2.3% of births, and it is fourteenth in 2025 with 3.1%.

More lists

All baby name lists · How this data works