Bills! Bills! Bills!

someone who is. The name Bill, especially in the more formal form “William” is one of the most popular masculine names in English-speaking countries. During the medieval ages a full quarter of the guys in England were called William. We can blame that on William the Conqueror, the Norman Frenchman who introduced the name to England back in 1066. There were already a number of Williams in France. Two of them, William of St. Thierry and William of Conches, were 111h Century monks who spent their days—entire lifetimes of them—in silence, copying manuscripts from one sheet of vellum to another with a quill pen. These days that task is done in an instant by Xerox machines, so those monkish Williams have become superfluous, or as the Brits say, “made redundant.” But unmonkish Williams proliferate today. In fact, some of the Williams you know are about as far from monkhood as could possibly be imagined. The name William is derived from a Norman French name “Willaume,” which, itself is derived from a German name “Willehelm.” The “will” part of that means determination (as in “strong-willed;) the “helm” part refers to protection (as in “helmet.”) Put those parts together and you get something that means “determined warrior” or “resolute protector.” Sounds like a good sort of fellow to have around, right? That probably accounts for why the name is so popular. The Social Security website tells us that for every hundred thousand people in America, precisely 888.94 of them are named William. There are 2,834,455 Williams living in America. But of course that number changes hourly as some Williams die off and others are born. The internet has several websites that parents expecting a baby boy can consult when looking around for a name to call the forthcoming kid. One site lists Liam, an Irish form of the name, at position #2 (after Oliver at #1.) William, in its pure form, comes in at #48. Another lists Liam at #1 and William at #3 (with Noah between them.) Yet another puts Noah in first place, followed by Liam at #2 and William at #5. A site showing names used for the last one hundred years shows William as the fifth most common, at least in English-speaking cultures. Go back an additional 300 years and it ranks 2nd. After John. Don’t look for Bills sitting around contemplating the universe in full lotus pose in Tibetan monasteries, kneeling and bowing in Syrian mosques, namaste-ing and ohm-ing on the ghats of the Ganges, or sitting at desks in the Althingi (Iceland’s equivalent to a parliament thingy.). There won’t be any Bills in the cast of a Noh drama or in the corps de ballet of the Ballet Russe. They will not be on the Carnivale samba floats of Rio nor among the lion dancers and dragon dancers of the Tet festivities in Viet Nam. Even in America it would be surprising to find very many Bills in the strawberry picking crews of central California, among the knife-juggling sous chefs of San Francisco’s Chinatown, or doing a rain dance at a Navaho pow-wows. No, they are more likely to be found in more Anglo-Euro venues like rodeos, lacrosse tournaments, latte shops, and mosh pits. The name is, after all, of Anglo-Euro derivation. Williams have been in the top ten since 2001 No matter how many sites are viewed, one concept emerges as clear: Williams abound. (William Shatner, William McKinley, William Shakespeare) But not all legally-named Williams are actually called “William.” Liams do tend to be called exactly by their legal names—Liams, but Williams not so much. Sure, many of them, once old enough to sign their own names, use William in their official signature, but many of their friends, acquaintances, and second-cousins-twice-removed, call them something else, like Bill or Billy, Will or Willy. All of those nicknames share an interesting common property: they are polysemic. Polysemic—that is the term for a word that has more than one meaning, like the word “left.” Or, for that matter, the word “right.” Consider the word Bill. As a proper noun it is a man’s name (Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Bill Gates) or an act of Congress. Without the capital B, lower-case bills can be invoices that come in the mail, lists of things loaded onto a ship or a train, green pieces of paper in your wallet, or statements introduced to Congress before they are officially adopted. Not a day on our lives goes by without us encountering some sort of lower-case b bill. Just pick up a newspaper and you will find reports of Congressional bills and Senate bills. Bills make headlines daily. We see headlines that, viewed as a series, sound like a biography of a guy named Bill: BILL CONCEIVED THROUGH PROTESTS BILL FAVORS BETTER PAY LOCAL RESIDENTS FAVOR BILL BILL INTRODUCED IN HOUSE BILL STIMULATES LIVELY DISCUSSION BILL LEAVES HOUSE BILL FACES TOUGH OPPOSITION BILL DIES IN SENATE Note that this last headline could convey an entirely different meaning from: BILL PASSES. That one would mean one thing if it were on the front page, something else on the obituary page. Wills, too, can be upper-cased for fellows’ names (Will Smith, Will Ferrell, Will Rogers) or lower-cased to mean determination (“iron-willed,”) a legal document explaining where somebody’s worldly belongings should go following their demise, or wills can be wishes (“where there’s a will.”) Will can also be a verb—to will the grandfather clock to a grandson—or what grammarians call a “helper verb” indicating was Billy The Kid, nee Henry McCarty. And two of the Wills mentioned above are not really Wills— Will Smith’s name is Willard and Will Ferrell’s name is John. Go figure.