William Thomas Riker was born in Valdez, Alaska in year 2335. His mother died while he was young (three?). His father (Kyle) was shown in "The Icarus Factor."

Wil has turned down three captaincies (the Drake mentioned in "Arsenal of Freedom" (and "Encounter at Farpoint"?), the Aries ("Ares"?) in "The Icarus Factor", and the Melbourne in "Best of Both Worlds").

He enjoys jazz music (Frakes wanted Riker's middle name to be the Tholonius (after the jazz musician Thelonious Monk) so Peter David had been using this is his novels), plays the trombone, is a master of poker, and enjoys cooking.

He was romantically involved with Deanna Troi prior to his assignment on Enterprise-D.

The character was based on Decker. He has a double (Thomas Riker) that was seen in "Second Chances on stardate 46915.2 (in year 2369)." Thomas was duplicated and separated due to a beam-out transportation at Nervala IV in year 2361. Thomas is, in every way, the same person, but differs in experience from the point of the accident forward. Later he was given a lieutenant rank and served aboard the Starship Gandhi. Thomas later joined Maquis, and captured and imprisoned by the Cardassian on stardate 48467.3 (in year 2371) ("DS9's Defiant").

William Riker resided in deck 8, room 0912 on Enterprise-D. He was assigned to Enterprise-E as the first commander in 2372, after the destruction of Enterprise-D in 2371 ("Star Trek: Generation & First Contact"). He and Geordi La Forge helped Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the space Warp, the flight of the Phoenix ship in year 2063.

Riker was called on USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant by Q. However, his memory of aboarding the Voyager was later erased when Q returned him back to his original location on stardate 49301 (in year 2372, "VOY's Death Wish").