Wilbur as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Wilbur

What is the meaning of the name Wilbur ?

The baby name Wilbur is a boy name , 2 syllables long and is pronounced WIL-ber.

Wilbur is English, Middle English, Old English, Proto-Germanic in Origin.

Wilbur is an English masculine name taken from a surname, with the best-supported source in Middle English Wildbor. That nickname joins wild, from Old English wilde and Proto-Germanic wilþijaz, to bor, from Old English bār and Proto-Germanic eburaz, a boar. Its literal sense is wild boar. Older explanations sometimes connect it instead with Germanic will or desire plus burg, fortress, or with Wilbert, but those are less direct for the surname.

As a given name, Wilbur was established in the United States by the nineteenth century, helped by Methodist minister Wilbur Fisk and later by Wilbur Wright, named for him. It has remained chiefly English-language, with Wilber as a common spelling variant. Literary recognition is dominated by E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, where Wilbur is the pig at the center of the story; in current use the name is much rarer in the United States than at its early-twentieth-century peak.