How Are “William” and “Guillermo” Related?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Justin from Dallas.

Hey, Justin, welcome.

What’s up?

Well, thanks for having me.

Yeah, so my question today has to do with the translation of names between English and Spanish.

I mean, a lot of them are really straightforward, but there are a few that really confuse me, and I wonder the roots, you know, of the translation.

The main one is my first name, William, which is translated to Guillermo.

I have asked many people, scholars in Spain and in Central America, and no one’s ever been able to give me a real explanation for why William becomes Guillermo.

And, you know, there are a few other names as well that kind of confused me.

But, you know, Lola being Dolores, for example, Santiago being St. James or just James.

Why James and not another saint?

But I was just wondering what you guys knew about this.

All right.

Yes, this is a huge question.

And names are something I love to talk about.

And, Martha, for some reason, we don’t do a lot with names on the show.

But, boy, we should.

We should.

We should.

William is a cool name because it has so many relationships with other names in European languages.

Here’s the thing about William, Justin.

So Justin is what, your middle name and William is your first name?

My middle name, yes.

Yes.

The bank calls me William.

I’ve gone by Justin for most of my life.

The bank calls you William.

Yeah.

The reason probably that you’re called William is due to William the Conqueror.

So here’s a little story about the name William and why it’s in English.

William the Conqueror was the man who led the Norman invasion of England to claim the kingdom for himself.

So he was in Normandy in France.

He had a claim to the throne, he said, and he defeated and killed Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings.

And he set out this new lineage for the British Isles, but also brought to the British Isles this huge Norman French influence that created the English language as we know it today.

After William the Conqueror came to England, not only did he create this new amalgam of the old English roots plus the French roots, but the name William became a hugely popular name in England.

Quickly became the most popular name in England. And it has really never receded, I think, from the top. I think it’s the top 1000 names ever since. It is an incredibly common name. And so forms of this name William, not because of him, exist in other languages. But it goes back further than that.

All of the forms of William in all of the European language that exists, and it’s in many of them, descend from a German name, Wilhelm. And Wilhelm means, well, it comes from two words. One will, W-I-L, meaning will, as in the desire or intent.

Will meaning desire, like I have the will to do this.

And helm, meaning helmet, the thing you put on your head to protect it.

So together, these two words mean protection and defense.

So that’s what Wilhelm or William means.

And the name comes from around the 8th century at least.

Now, the reason this German name exists throughout Europe is because these Germanic tribes spread throughout Europe and spread this name as they conquered, as they traded with others, as they spread their language with them. So they brought this language.

So that’s why you have Guillermo in Spanish, you have Guillaume in French, but you also have Wielimek in Czech and Wielinski in Polish. And there are many, many, many nickname forms, diminutive forms, and abbreviated forms of this, especially in French, which I think I counted 80 different forms of it in French. And there’s quite a few in Spanish as well. And Italian, they all have it.

So this all goes back to this Germanic root and the Germanic tribes since the 8th century, spreading this throughout Europe. And so this is why you’re named William. This is why this name was available in the inventory of English names to be used for you.

Interesting. So I can see where, you know, in the French, you know, there’s a good bit of the spelling that’s common, right?

Was it just, you know, the translation of the W to a GU at the beginning? Is that, was that a phonetic difference?

Yes.

Or, you know.

So when, in historical linguistics, when languages change, and I can’t get too far into this because it’s beyond the length of the show, there are some specific rules about how sounds change.

For example, why do we say William, but in German it’s Wilhelm?

It’s because V is the voice sound where we use the vocal cords, and W is almost that same mouth shape with the lips, but we don’t use our voice for the W, right?

Say William and William, and your mouth is in the same place, but one uses the vocal cords and the other one doesn’t, right?

So that’s one way that language changes.

And with Guillermo, that’s the sound moving to the back of the throat.

And the same with Guillaume.

So the sound changed numerous times to become Guillaume and became Guillermo.

And then it had different paths.

So these sounds can change multiple times.

So Guillermo probably is, I think it’s the fourth or fifth sound change for that, the V sound to become that G in Guillermo.

And you see the same kind of change between the English word for war and the Spanish word for war, which, as you may know, is guerra.

Yeah, guerra.

Yeah, and then the English words ward and guard both come from the same root and warranty and guarantee.

Sometimes those G’s and W’s interchange like that.

Interesting. You know, that is the best explanation I’ve ever heard. This has been something I’ve been wondering about for so long, and this is a really convincing explanation.

There is a very readable book. It’s an academic book, but it’s a very readable book, nonetheless, called Historical Linguistics. I think it’s to the third edition by R.L. Trask, T-R-A-S-K. I highly recommend it. I mean, I think if a college student or a high school student can definitely read it. Again, Historical Linguistics by R.L. Trask. I absolutely recommend it.

Will introduce you to the topic of this language change.

This is how we know what languages used to sound like and how we know that these languages are all related and go back to Indo-European and Proto-European.

And we know that Sanskrit is related to Latin, for example.

We know this is how we know that…

And Greek.

And Greek.

This is how we know that the Indian languages are related to the European languages.

It’s amazing.

That is okay.

I will definitely pick up that book.

I absolutely will.

Thank you guys so much.

Take care.

Be well.

Glad to have you.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye.

877-929-9673.