Pearl
Meaning of Pearl
Pearl moves through history like moonlight sliding across a quiet inlet—cool, luminous, unhurried. Born from the Latin “perla” and carried into English as the very word for the ocean’s secret jewel, she entered given-name lists in the late Victorian era, when parents sought the poetry of nature for their daughters; yet her deeper resonance stretches farther, evoking the Japanese 真珠 (shinju), the silken orbs coaxed from Akoya oysters off the shores of Mie, where ama divers once slipped beneath pale waves in breath-held silence. Around her swirls a constellation of meanings: in Christian lore, the “pearl of great price” speaks of spiritual treasure; in Buddhist texts, the wish-granting cintamani glows with the same soft fire; and throughout East Asia, dragons cradle pearls as emblems of wisdom condensed from mist. June claims the gem as its birthstone, lovers mark thirty years with it, and storytellers have long framed it as a symbol of purity that is earned, not bestowed, through patient layering of resilience. Though her popularity crested in the roaring 1920s and drifted for decades like a shell on a slack tide, recent parents have begun to hear her subdued shimmer again, allowing Pearl to rise quietly through the rankings—proof that true lustre never really fades, it only waits beneath the surface until the light returns.
Pronunciation
British English
- Pronunced as purl (/pɜːl/)
American English
- Pronunced as purl (/pɜrl/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Pearl
| Pearl S. Buck was an American writer who won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes for her novel The Good Earth, which vividly portrayed Chinese peasant life. |
| Pearl Connor-Mogotsi was a pioneering Trinidadian-born agent and activist who championed African Caribbean arts in the UK as the first to represent minority artists and co-found an early black theatre company. |
| Pearl is the stage name of American drag performer and record producer Matthew James Lent, who was a joint runner-up on RuPaul's Drag Race season 7. |
| South African actress Sithembile Xola Pearl Thusi is best known for starring in Netflix's first African original series, Queen Sono. |
| Pearl Irma Young was the first female technical employee of NACA, which evolved into NASA, and she served as Chief Technical Editor and an engineering professor. |
