The writers of Buffy seem to love the name William and all its derivatives. Here’s a list of all the William variants used on the show:
- William the Bloody (Spike’s human name and original title)
- Liam (Angel’s human name)
- Billy Fordham: (Buffy’s friend from LA who sold her out to Spike)
- Billy Palmer: (the little boy in the coma who caused nightmares to come to life)
- Billy Crandal: (chained himself to a snack machine in I Only Have Eyes For You)
- Billy (an unclassified demon in Angel, who brought out the worst in men with a touch)
- Willy the Snitch (demon bar tender)
- Wil or Will: the name sometimes given to Willow (yeah, this was a bit of a stretch)
February 4th, 2006 at 3:18 am
I like Billy Crandal. That was funny.
SECRETARY: Principal Snyder, Billy Crandal chained himself to the snack machine again.
SNYDER: Stupid vegan.
February 7th, 2006 at 8:25 am
i never realised that liam was short for william. if i was a buffyverse writer i would have surely found a way to mention that spike and angel had the same human name.
February 8th, 2006 at 3:30 am
Or Spike. Hee hee
February 8th, 2006 at 7:55 am
Liam is a pretty cool name. It is a lot cooler nickname for William then plain ol’ Will. You think the writers would have mentioned that little fact of Angel and Spike having them same birth name. Curious…
February 13th, 2006 at 3:30 am
They may not have directly mentioned that they had the same human name (Willian/Liam), but they had several conversations in Angel in which they would call each other by their human names. At that point, it was like, “Hey! Wait a minute…”
April 10th, 2006 at 8:57 am
I don’t think Angel’s name is William. Liam is a name in itself. It’s a variant of William, but I don’t believe it was used here as a nickname or anything. Even the Wolfram and Hart files classify him as Liam (Lilah : “What kind of wussy name is Liam anyway?”)