Wilcox
A surname built from William plus a diminutive ending, originally meaning “little Will” or “Will’s son.”
The #602 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 5,485 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Wilcox is generally treated as a shortened form of an older William-based name, probably from Will + the diminutive/patronymic ending -cock or -cox. In older English surname usage, this ending could mark affection, smallness, or descent, so the name came to mean something like “little Will” or “son of Will.” Some 19th-century writers also connected it more loosely with Williamson-type patronymics, but the William origin is the key point.
History
The name appears in medieval English records in forms such as Wilcocks and was later fixed in the shorter Wilcox spelling. Nineteenth-century surname writers often grouped it with other names ending in -cock/-cox, and some treated it as a diminutive of William rather than a strict patronymic. It spread widely in England and later became common in English-speaking countries, especially through migration to North America.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books sometimes used Wilcox as a textbook example of how a nickname ending could harden into a hereditary family name.
From the historical record
“There has been confusion with Wiloock. WILCOX for Wlloocks, q.v. W,'l:c§XEN}^-Wilcockson.q,v. WILD "I (Eng.) 1 Savage, Fierce, Un- WILDEJ GOVERNED [M.E. wild{e, wyld{e, O.E. wilde] Walter le Wilde.— iJuMif. Rolls. "2 Dweller at a Weald [O.E. weald,”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)