William A. Anderson was a politician and judge who served as the 30th mayor of Minneapolis.

William Arnold Barnett is an American economist, whose current work is in the fields of chaos, bifurcation, and nonlinear dynamics in socioeconomic contexts, econometric modeling of consumption and production, and the study of the aggregation problem and the challenges of measurement in economics.

William A. Owens,, was an American writer, folklorist and educator.

William Adams Brown was an American minister, professor and philanthropist.

William Addison Lathrop was an American writer, playwright, and screenwriter for silent films.

William Aiton was a Scottish botanist.

William Andrus Alcott, also known as William Alexander Alcott, was an American educator, educational reformer, physician, vegetarian and author of 108 books. His works, which include a wide range of topics including educational reform, physical education, school house design, family life, and diet, are still widely cited today.

William Aldis Wright, was an English writer and editor.

William Alexander Caruthers (1802–1846) was an American novelist.

William Alfred Quayle was an American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1908.