Famous Williams
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50 free Famous Williams trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
William has been a name for conquerors and kings, for presidents, poets and playwrights, and for a long line of scientists, generals, film stars and musicians. It has stayed in fashion for centuries, which is why so many of the best-known people in history answer to William, Bill, Billy or Will. This quiz gathers the most famous Williams in one place. Some questions start with a well-known William, such as Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Shatner, Wallace or the Conqueror, and ask what he did, who he worked with or what he left behind. Others give you a clue and ask you to pick the right William from a set of people who share the name. A good number are about stars you know as Bill, Billy or Will, or by a middle name or a stage name, who were christened William all the same. It suits pub quiz hosts looking for a themed round, anyone celebrating the William in the family, and general knowledge fans who like history, literature, science, film, music and sport mixed together. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even from the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Oscar-winning actor, a William who goes by his middle name, first won notice as a hitchhiker in Thelma & Louise?
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt was born William Bradley Pitt and shares his first name with his father, William Alvin Pitt, who ran a trucking company.
Q 02William Shakespeare was 18 when he married which bride, who was 26 and already expecting their first child?
Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway received only one bequest in her husband's will: his second-best bed with its furniture.
Q 03William Shatner, Star Trek's Captain Kirk, flew to the edge of space in 2021 at age 90 with which company?
Blue Origin
Blue Origin's founder Jeff Bezos, a Star Trek fan, invited him aboard a New Shepard capsule for a suborbital flight launched from West Texas.
Q 04Bill Clinton, born William Jefferson Blythe III, played which instrument on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1992?
Saxophone
Saxophone was his instrument from his school days, when he won first chair in the Arkansas state band's section.
Q 05Billy the Kid, who used the alias William H. Bonney, was shot dead in 1881 by which New Mexico sheriff?
Pat Garrett
Pat Garrett had already captured the outlaw once, but the prisoner broke out of jail before he could be hanged and stayed free for more than two months.
Q 06Bill Gates, born William Henry Gates III in Seattle, dropped out of which university in 1975 to co-found Microsoft?
Harvard
Harvard is also where he met Steve Ballmer, the fellow student who stayed to graduate and later succeeded him as the head of Microsoft.
Q 07Which actor directed himself as Scottish rebel William Wallace in the Oscar-winning 1995 epic Braveheart?
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson took home the Best Director Oscar for the film, one of five Academy Awards it won, Best Picture among them.
Q 08Prince William met his future wife, Catherine Middleton, while both were students at which Scottish university?
St Andrews
St Andrews is where the prince started out studying art history before switching his main subject to geography.
Q 09William the Conqueror won the English crown in 1066 by defeating King Harold at which battle in Sussex?
Hastings
Hastings came less than three weeks after Harold had rushed north to beat a Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge, then hurried his men back south.
Q 10The rapper and producer will.i.am, born William Adams in Los Angeles, formed which chart-topping group in 1995?
Black Eyed Peas
Black Eyed Peas started out as a rap trio: he formed the group alongside fellow rappers apl.de.ap and Taboo.
Q 11Billy Joel, born William Martin Joel in the Bronx, is nicknamed after which signature song he released in 1973?
Piano Man
Piano Man retells his six months playing a Los Angeles piano bar under the name Bill Martin while he tried to escape a record contract.
Q 12Which Italian composer wrote the 1829 opera William Tell, whose overture finale became the theme of The Lone Ranger?
Rossini
Rossini never wrote another opera after it, even though he lived for nearly 40 more years.
Q 13William F. Cody, a frontier scout turned showman, toured America and Europe with his Wild West show under which name?
Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bill took the show to London in 1887, where Queen Victoria attended a performance during her Golden Jubilee year.
Q 21William Clark was invited to co-lead the 1804 expedition across the American West by which captain and close friend?
Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis was President Jefferson's pick to lead the Corps of Discovery, sent to explore the land gained in the Louisiana Purchase.
Q 22Captain William Bligh was set adrift in an open launch in 1789 when the crew of which ship mutinied?
HMS Bounty
HMS Bounty's mutineers left him with 18 loyal men, and he steered the small boat more than 3,600 nautical miles to safety in Timor.
Q 23Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst was the main inspiration for the lead character of which Orson Welles film?
Citizen Kane
Q 14William Howard Taft is the only person to have served as US president and later in which other high office?
Chief Justice
Chief Justice was the post he had long wanted: he turned down earlier offers of a Supreme Court seat, then got the top one in 1921.
Q 15William Henry Harrison died just 31 days into his presidency in 1841 and was succeeded by which vice president?
John Tyler
John Tyler was the first vice president to take over from a president who died, and opponents mocked him as His Accidency.
Q 16William McKinley's assassination in 1901 made which man, then aged 42, the youngest president in US history?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt had been vice president for only six months when the shooting at the Pan-American Exposition put him in the White House.
Q 17William Wordsworth's most famous poem was inspired by a lakeside walk with his sister Dorothy past which flowers?
Daffodils
Daffodils grew in a long belt along the shore of Ullswater in the Lake District, where the pair came upon them in April 1802.
Q 18Which Nobel Prize winner wrote Lord of the Flies, a 1954 debut novel about schoolboys stranded on an island?
William Golding
William Golding knew boys well: he worked as a schoolmaster, teaching English and music, before the novel made his name.
Q 19Which London poet and engraver, who said he saw angels in a tree as a boy, wrote The Tyger?
William Blake
William Blake also wrote the verses that became the anthem Jerusalem, and produced his books himself by a method called illuminated printing.
Q 20Which English Quaker was granted a vast tract of American land by King Charles II in 1681 and founded Philadelphia?
William Penn
William Penn received the land because the king owed money to his father, an admiral, and the grant settled the debt.
Citizen Kane gave its tycoon a vast estate called Xanadu, a stand-in for the real Hearst Castle in California.
Q 24Who made his money in lumber before founding a Seattle aircraft company in 1916 that still carries his surname?
William Boeing
William Boeing had dropped out of Yale to go into lumber, and his aircraft firm only took his own name a year after he founded it.
Q 25William Wrigley Jr. sold soap and baking powder before switching to which product he had been giving away free?
Chewing gum
Chewing gum was his giveaway with each can of baking powder, until he found customers wanted the freebie more than the product.
Q 26Animator William Hanna and his partner Joseph Barbera created which cat-and-mouse duo at MGM in 1940?
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry went on to win seven Academy Awards, with Hanna himself supplying the vocal effects for both characters.
Q 27Bill Watterson, born William Boyd Watterson II, drew which comic strip about a six-year-old boy and his stuffed tiger?
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes has almost no official merchandise because he refused to license it, saying mugs and T-shirts would devalue the characters.
Q 28Psychologist William Moulton Marston, who helped invent an early lie detector, created which comic book superhero?
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman binds villains with a magic lasso that forces them to tell the truth, a fitting weapon from a pioneer of lie detection.
Q 29Bill Murray, born William James Murray, plays a weatherman stuck in a time loop in which 1993 comedy?
Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day is set in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, but it was filmed almost entirely in Woodstock, Illinois.
Q 30Which Northern Irish actor, christened William John, played Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List?
Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson was named after a local priest, and as a boy he boxed, winning regional titles before he quit at 17.