WILLIS FAMILY NAME HISTORY
The English family
name Willis is classified as being of personal name origin.
According to scholars the “oldest and most pervasive type of
surname is that derived from a given name”. Such
family names may be derived from a parental first name or from
the font name of the grandfather or indeed a more remote ancestor
of the original bearer of the surname. With regard to the
family name Willis, it indicates “son of Willis”, a pet
form of William, an ancient first name introduced into England by
the Normans. The given name William is ultimately of German
origin, derived from the Old High German “willi”
meaning “desire, will” and “helm” meaning
“protection, helmet”. Variants of the surname
Willis include Wyllys and Whillis.
One of the earliest
references to this name or to a variant is a record of one Walter
Willys who is listed in the Subsidy Rolls for Staffordshire in
1327. However, research is of course ongoing and this name
may have been documented even earlier than the date indicated
above. Roger Wyllys is mentioned in documents relating to
Co. Kent in 1438 and the daughter of Joseph Willis was baptized
in Stanhope, CO. Durham, in 1734. The marriage of one
Willis and Sara Barker is registered in Saint Cuthbert, Bedford,
Bedfordshire, in 1743. Although there exist some English
surnames which had become fixed and hereditary by the end of the
twelfth century the English scholar P. H. Reaney tells us that in
that same century “we have an unsettled and varied type of
nomenclature”. Indeed, in London even in the
thirteenth and fourteenth century, he states, a surname could be
replaced for that of another. This name was introduced to
North America as early as 1620 in which year we find a record of
the emigration of Ann Willis, who sailed to Virginia. The
name could of course have been first introduced to that country
at an earlier date.
BLAZON OF ARMS: Argent a
chevron sable between three mullets gules.
CREST:
A falcon, wings expanded proper belled or.
ORIGIN:
ENGLAND