Online Etymology Dictionary

William: masc. proper name, from O.N.Fr. Willaume, Norman form of Fr. Guillaume, of Gmc. origin (cf. O.H.G. Willahelm), from willio "will" + helma "helmet." After the Conquest, the most popular given name in England until supplanted by John.
Burke (v.): family name (first recorded 1066), from Anglo-Norman pronunciation of O.E. burgh. Not common in England itself, but it took root in Ireland, where William de Burgo went in 1171 with Henry II and later became Earl of Ulster. As shorthand for a royalty reference book, it represents "A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the United Kingdom," first issued 1826, compiled by John Burke (1787-1848). As a verb meaning "murder by smothering," it is abstracted from William Burk, executed in Edinburgh 1829 for murdering several persons to sell their bodies for dissection.
nobodaddy: c.1793, William Blake's derisive name for the anthropomorphic God of Christianity.
Bowman's capsule: 1882, named for Eng. surgeon William Bowman (1816-1892).
Orangemen: secret society founded 1795 in Belfast to promote Protestant power in N.Ireland, named for William of Orange (who became King William III of England and triumphed in Ireland at the head of a Protestant army at the Battle of the Boyne), of the Ger. House of Nassau. His cousins and their descendants constitute the royal line of Holland. The name is from the town of Orange on the Rhone in France, which became part of the Nassau principality in 1530, the town so called because it was said to have been a center for importing oranges to northern France and beyond (its Roman name was Arausio). In this roundabout way the political/religious movement of N.Ir. Protestantism acquired an association with the color orange.
Pennsylvania: American colony, later U.S. state, 1681, lit. "Penn's Woods," a hybrid formed from the surname Penn (Welsh, lit. "head") + L. sylvania (see sylvan). Not named for William Penn, the proprietor, but, on suggestion of Charles II, for Penn's late father, Admiral William Penn (1621-70), who had lent the king the money that was repaid in the form of land for a Quaker settlement in America. Penn wanted to call it New Wales, but the king's secretary, a Welshman of orthodox religion, wouldn't hear of it. Pennsylvania Dutch is attested from 1824. Pennsylvanian in ref. to a geological system is attested from 1891.
Occam's razor: when two competing hypotheses explain the data equally well, choose the simpler. Named for Eng. philosopher William of Ockham (c.1285-c.1349).
Morris: style of furniture, wallpaper, etc., 1880, in ref. to poet and craftsman William Morris (1834-96).
multiverse: 1895, William James's coinage, an alternative to universe meant to convey absence of order and unity.
McGuffey's: children's reader, first published 1836, created by Ohio educator and linguist William Holmes McGuffey (1800-73).
forsythia: 1814, coined 1805 in Mod.L. in honor of William Forsyth (1737-1804), Scottish horticulturalist who brought the shrub from China.
DAE: the usual acronym for "A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles," published in four volumes between 1936 and 1944, edited by Sir William A. Craigie and James R. Hulbert.
Boeing: U.S. aerospace corporation, founded 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington, as an airplane manufacturer. The family name is German.
Kelvin: unit of absolute temperature scale, 1911, in honor of British physicist Sir William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907).
Alan: masc. proper name, 1066, from O.Bret. Alan, name of a popular Welsh and Breton saint; brought to England by the large contingent of Bretons who fought alongside William the Conqueror.
empower: 1650s, used by William Penn in 1690, but the modern popularity dates from 1986; from en- + power.
Cowper's gland: 1738, so called because discovered by anatomist William Cowper (1666-1709); see Cooper.
cerebration: 1853, coined by English physiologist Dr. William B. Carpenter (1813-1885) from L. cerebrum "brain" (see cerebral).
Uranus: first planet discovered that was not known in ancient times, named for the god of Heaven, husband of Gaia, the Earth, from L. Uranus, from Gk. Ouranos lit. "heaven," in Gk. cosmology, the god who personifies the heavens, father of the titans. Cf. Urania, name of the Muse of astronomy, from Gk. Ourania, fem. of ouranios, lit. "heavenly." Planet discovered and identified as such in 1781 by Sir William Herschel (it had been observed before, but mistaken for a star, cf. 1690 when John Flamsteed cataloged it as 34 Tauri); Herschel proposed calling it Georgium Sidus, lit. "George's Star," in honour of his patron, King George III of England.
"I cannot but wish to take this opportunity of expressing my sense of gratitude, by giving the name of Georgium Sidus ... to a star which (with respect to us) first began to shine under His auspicious reign." [Sir William Herschel, 1783]
The planet was known in Eng. in 1780s as the Georgian Planet; Fr. astronomers began calling Herschel, and ult. Ger. astronomer Johann Bode proposed Uranus as in conformity with other planet names. However, the name didn't come into common usage until c.1850.
athetosis: 1871, from Gk. athetos "not fixed, without position or place" + -osis. Coined by U.S. nerve specialist William Alexander Hammond (1828-1900).
spoonerism: 1900, but perhaps as early as 1885, involuntary transposition of sounds in two or more words (cf. "a well-boiled icicle" for "a well-oiled bicycle;" "scoop of boy trouts" for "troop of Boy Scouts"), in allusion to the Rev. William A. Spooner (1844-1930), warden of New College, Oxford, who was famous for such mistakes.
Gulliver: male proper name, from O.Fr. goulafre "glutton," a very common name, found as a surname in Domesday Book (William Gulafra).
plesiosaurus: 1825, from Mod.L. (1821), coined by William Daniel Conybeare (1787-1857) from Gk. plesios "near" + sauros "lizard."
Wilhelmine: 1931, "pertaining to the reign of Wilhelm II," emperor of Germany 1888-1918, from Ger. Wilhelm (see William).
xenon: 1898, from Gk. neut. of xenos "foreign, strange," coined by its discoverer, Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916); cf. krypton.
anorexia nervosa: "emaciation as a result of severe emotional disturbance," coined 1873 by William W. Gull (1816–1890), who also proposed apepsia hysterica as a name for it. See anorexia.
banting: system for weight loss through diet control, named for William Banting (1797–1878), English undertaker who invented it, tested it himself, and promoted it in his 1863 booklet "Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public." Although the word is a surname, it was used like a verbal noun in -ing. ("She is banting").
krypton: "inert gaseous element," 1898, coined by its discoverers (Sir William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers) from Gk. krypton, neut. of kryptos "hidden;" so called because it was a rare gas.
conceptually: 1890, from conceptual + -ly (2). First attested in William James.
black hole: in astrophysics, 1968, probably with awareness of Black Hole of Calcutta, incident of June 19, 1756, in which 146 British POWs taken by the Nawab of Bengal after the capture of Ft. William, Calcutta, were held overnight in punishment cell of the barracks (meant to hold 4 people) and all but 23 perished.
scientist: 1834, coined from L. scientia (see science) by the Rev. William Whewell (1794–1866), Eng. polymath, by analogy with artist.
billy: "club," 1848, Amer.Eng., originally burglars' slang for "crowbar;" meaning "policeman's club" first recorded 1856, probably from nickname of William, applied to various objects (cf. jack, jimmy, jenny).
debunk: 1923, from de- + bunk; first used by U.S. novelist William Woodward (1874-1950), the notion being "to take the bunk out of things."
Edsel: the make of car was introduced 1956, named for Henry and Clara Ford's only child; figurative sense of "something useless and unwanted" is almost as old. Edsel is a family name, attested since 14c. (William de Egeshawe), from High Edser in Ewhurst, Surrey.
Fulbright: in ref. to U.S. Sen. William Fulbright of Arkansas, esp. to the Fulbright Act of 1946, which authorized proceeds from sales of U.S. war surplus materials to be used to fund higher education overseas.
cyberspace: 1982, often as two words at first, coined by science fiction writer William Gibson (best known for "Neuromancer") and used by him in a short story published in 1982, from cyber- (see cybernetics) + space.
Sherman: type of U.S. medium tank used in World War II, 1942, named for U.S. Civil War Gen. William T. Sherman (1820-91). The surname is from O.E. scearra "shears" + mann "man;" hence "shearer of woolen garments."
folkways: coined 1907 in book of the same name by U.S. sociologist William Graham Sumner 1840–1910), who also is credited with ethnocentrism, found in the same book.
“Folkways are habits of the individual and customs of the society which arise from efforts to satisfy needs. ... Then they become regulative for succeeding generations and take on the character of a social force.” [Sumner, “Folkways”]
Disney: surname attested from mid-12c. (William de Ysini), from Isigny in the Calvados region of Normandy. Disneyesque, in reference to Walt Disney's cartooning style, is attested from 1939.
neurosis: 1776, "functional derangement arising from disorders of the nervous system," coined by Scot, physician William Cullen (1710-90) from Gk. neuron "nerve" (see neuro-) + Mod.L. -osis "abnormal condition." Used in a general psychological sense since 1871; clinical use in psychiatry dates from 1923.
Jamesian: "of or in the mode of James," 1875 in ref. to William James (1842-1910) U.S. philosopher and exponent of pragmatism; 1905 in ref. to his brother Henry James (1843-1916), U.S. expatriate novelist.
astigmatism: coined (in form astigmatic) 1849 by the Rev. William Whewell (1794–1866), Eng. polymath, from Gk. a- "without" + stigmatos gen. of stigma "a mark, spot, puncture" (see stick (v.)).
circulation: 1440, from L. circulationem, from circulare "to form a circle," from circulus "small ring" (see circle). Used of blood first by William Harvey, 1628.
Domesday book: 1178, popular name of Great Inquisition or Survey (1086), William the Conqueror's inventory of his new domain, from M.E. domes, gen. of dom "day of judgment" (see doom). "The booke ... to be called Domesday, bicause (as Mathew Parise saith) it spared no man, but iudged all men indifferently." [Lambarde]
initiative: 1793, "that which begins," also "power of initiating," from Fr. initiative (1567), from L. initiatus (see initiation). First attested in Eng. in writings of William Godwin. Phrase take the initiative first recorded 1856.
electrolysis: 1834, introduced by Faraday on the suggestion of the Rev. William Whewell (1794–1866), Eng. polymath, from electro- (see electric) + Gk. lysis "a loosening," from lyein "to loosen, set free" (see lose). Originally of tumors, later (1909) of hair removal.
anode: 1834, coined from Gk. anodos "way up," from ana "up" + hodos "way" (see cede). Proposed by the Rev. William Whewell (1794–1866), Eng. polymath, and published by Eng. chemist and physicist Michael Faraday (1791-1867). So called from the path the electrical current was thought to take. Anodize is recorded from 1931.
despotism: mid-18c., from Fr. despotisme; see despot + -ism.
"All education is despotism." [William Godwin, "Enquirer," 1797]
entanglement: mid-17c., from entangle + -ment. Related: Entanglements. Foreign entanglements does not appear as such in Washington’s Farewell Address, though he nonetheless warns against them. The phrase is found in William Coxe’s 1798 memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole.
argon: chemical element, 1894, from Gk. argon, neut. of argos "idle," from a- "without" + ergon "work" (see urge (v.)). So called by its discoverers, Baron Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay, for its inert qualities.