Family name origins & meanings
- German : Americanized spelling of Willeit, a variant of Willeitner, a habitational name from a more recent form of the place name Weillitnen in northern Bavaria. Willeit is probably also a topographic name from Middle High German wīl ‘small settlement’ + leite ‘slope’.
- Johann Michael Wilhoit or Wilheit emigrated in about 1717 from Germany to the Germanna Colony on the Rapidan River, VA (a settlement of Protestant refugees from the Rhineland). Little is known about him and his family, but they had many descendants, and the surname has many variant spellings.