Baby name
RISING
🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇳🇿 Percival
/PER · sih · vuhl/
Meaning
“Possibly pierce the valley”
Created by the 12th-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes for his Arthurian knight in 'Perceval, the Story of the Grail'. He may have formed it from Old French perce val, 'pierce the valley', or based it loosely on the Welsh name Peredur, which possibly means 'hard spears' (from Welsh peri, 'spears', and dur, 'hard, steel').
Nicknames
percy
Vibe
noble
How it ages.
Literary and old-fashioned, a rare, tradition-steeped name kept alive mainly through Arthurian legend.
The cultural moment.
Ranked #735 in England and Wales in 2025, up from #878 in 2022, #843 in 2023 and #814 in 2024; it was also used historically in the United States (#862 in 1902) and New Zealand (#100 in 1918).