Comments on this trivia

1. 

   MagicBone on 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.

2. 

   cardboardy on 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.

3. 

   MagicBone on February 8th, 2006 at 3:30 am

   Or Spike. Hee hee

4. 

   Abby M. on 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…

5. 

   Insane_Flamingo on 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…”

6. 

   Lilwenn on 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?”)

7. 

   clowder8 on September 16th, 2006 at 9:57 pm

   Lilwellen is correct.
   “William” is the English, “Liam” the Irish, the same name in different languages. Much as John, Sean, Ian, an Juan are all “John” really.
   And check it out: according to BehindTheName.com, “William” means ‘will, or desire’. The actual definition of ‘Liam’ in a book I own is that it means ‘Gaelic’, the Irish language.
   Oh, and just as a footnote: “Willow” I personally believe was named for Joss Whedon’s wife, Kai. Because youssee “Kai”, in Navajo means Willow Tree. Just a theory.

8. 

   Bakatulip on June 22nd, 2007 at 5:43 pm

   For those saying Spike and Angel had the same name, that’s not the case. They have names that are variations on each other. Liam’s not short for William, it’s a variation on the name. Like Rachel, Rachael, Raquel are all variations. babynames.com says that “Buffy” is a variation on Elizabeth. XD

   Though I gotta say seeing WilLiam as a couple abbreviation for very early Spike/Angel stuff rocks.

9. 

   stephanieisit on June 23rd, 2007 at 11:09 pm

   Yeah Liam and William are separate names. Liam can be a nickname for William but you can also have “Liam” on your birth certificate. Like Sally is a derivative of Sarah but you wouldn’t say they had the same name ;)

10. 

    HarFang on April 19th, 2008 at 12:45 am

    Still, even if Liam is not exactly the same as William, we can consider it as its Irish counterpart, can’t we ? I can’t believe that the writers wouldn’t have noticed that the two names were one syllable away from each other, especially as they are names we don’t get to hear very often, so they are more or less mythical. How many people must have litterally jumped up when they finally discovered what Angel’s true name was?? I know I did.)

    Now, just one question that suddenly comes to my mind : what does it mean that Buffy never refers to Angel by his real first name, while she uses Spike’s first name at least three times ? (In 4.09 Something Blue, 5.05 No Place Like Home and 6.15 As You Were)

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