What is the name of Shakespeare's only son?

Shakespeare’s only son was Hamnet Shakespeare. He was born in 1585 to William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway and was the fraternal twin of his sister Judith. The twins were baptised together in Stratford-upon-Avon on 2 February 1585.

Hamnet died at the age of 11 and was buried on 11 August 1596. The parish records do not preserve the cause of death, so suggestions that he died from plague or famine remain speculative. His death occurred while Shakespeare was establishing his theatrical career in London, though the surviving evidence does not tell us how often father and son saw each other.

Hamnet’s name was a variant of Hamlet, and Shakespeare’s will spelled the name of Hamnet Sadler, a family acquaintance, as “Hamlett.” Because Shakespeare wrote Hamlet several years after his son’s death, readers and scholars have often wondered whether the boy influenced the tragedy. That connection is possible but unproven; Hamlet also derives from older Scandinavian stories about Amleth.