Given name & surname · also Old English
Wilberforce
“ditch”
Wilberforce is a surname from Old English.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Wilberforce goes back to Old English Wilburg, meaning “ditch.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
This spelling has been associated with Old English and Latin naming traditions.
How it developed
It entered given-name use through an existing surname.
The story
Its naming history includes the use of a family name as a given name.
Wilberforce’s family of names
Wilberforce may belong to the same name family as WILLBERFORCE. This is a tentative spelling connection.
See also 1
Names our sources mention alongside this one. They are related in story or meaning, not forms of this name.
People named Wilberforce
- Wilberforce EavesEnglish tennis player (1867–1920)
- Wilberforce MfumGhanaian footballer1936–2025
- Wilberforce TalelKenyan distance runnerborn 1980
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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