Definition of "Wilhelm"

As it happened, also, the particular Friedrichs and Wilhelms whom he meant to see and confer with were out of town, or had moved their habitats, so that he could not easily find them.

1872 December, Edward E[verett] Hale, “Ups and Downs”, in Old and New, volume VI, number 6, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, […], chapter XXVI, page 689

The dour Friedrich Wilhelm I, never out of uniform, accumulating tax income from a dozen different unconstitutional sources, takes time out from drilling his grenadiers to smash an inefficient postillion over the head with his cane. The sleepless Friedrich der Grosse, an atheist Calvin, rises at 6 a.m. to write the day’s orders to his bureaucrats, a shining example to the world of “enlightened despotism.” Even the feckless Friedrich Wilhelm III, defeated by a French revolutionary army, appoints a minister to tell him “Your majesty must do from above what the French have done from below.” […] When the king contemplated (God forbid) his abdication on the issue, Bismarck threw himself into the breach, accepted the office of Chancellor, defied the parliament, and collected the tax, just as the Friedrichs and Wilhelms had done before the French Revolution interrupted the course of progress.

1983, William R[omeyn] Everdell, The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans, New York, N.Y.: The Free Press, page 250

The king’s palace, abode of all the Friedrichs and Wilhelms, had stood there, too, vacated after World War One, discreetly ignored by Hitler, bombed by the Allies in 1945, and finally demolished by the communists.

2001, James Howard Kunstler, The City in Mind: Meditations on the Urban Condition, New York, N.Y.: The Free Press, page 116

Eventually it [the law faculty] chose Friedrich Julius Stahl (1802–1861) – born Joel Golson (or Jolson). […] Uhlfelder’s activities were also efficient in assuring Joel’s (and other Jews’) admission to the renowned Protestant school, the Wilhelm Gymnasium.96 It was there that Joel became acquainted with Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer – the Bannerträger des Neuhumanismus – and with the philosopher and Goethe’s friend Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. Joel also developed a special relationship with Friedrich Wilhelm Tiersch during his Gymnasium years. […] Clearly, his choice of a new name shows what it must have felt like to be a Joel surrounded by so many Friedrichs and Wilhelms.

2013, Reut Yael Paz, “Jews, Universities and International Law”, in A Gateway between a Distant God and a Cruel World: The Contribution of Jewish German-Speaking Scholars to International Law (The Erik Castrén Institute Monographs on International Law and Human Rights; 16), Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, section 3 (Jewish Legal Denkstil/Denkkollektiv as Gateways in German Law Faculties), subsection 2 (Friedrich Julius Stahl: The ‘Paul’ of the 19th Century), pages 105–106