How popular is the baby name Pearl in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Pearl.

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Popularity of the baby name Pearl


Posts that mention the name Pearl

Tower of London raven names: Which do you like best?

Tower of London raven
Raven at the Tower of London

Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee celebration is now underway.

This news reminds me of a funny little fact: Did you know that a group of ravens lives in the Tower of London?

Local superstition has it that “if the ravens leave, the Tower would fall and the Kingdom would fall,” so at least six captive ravens are kept in the Tower at all times.

And all the ravens — at least in the modern era — have had names.

According to various sources (like this BBC article from ’05) past birds have been called Baldrick, Bran, Branwen, Cedric, Charlie, Edgar Sopper, George, Grip, Grog, Gundulf, Gwyllum, Hardey, Jim Crow, Mabel, Marley, Odin, Rhys and Thor.

The current group consists of:

  • Erin (female)
  • Hugine (female)
  • Merlina (female)
  • Munin (female)
  • Pearl (female)
  • Porsha (female)
  • Rocky (male)

Which raven name do you like best?

And a very challenging follow-up question: If you had a set of six ravens living in your backyard — and their constant presence didn’t freak you out so much that you felt compelled to call animal control — what would you name them?

Source: The Ravens – Historic Royal Places

Image: Adapted from Towerrabe by Cyberolm under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Baby born in Wales, named y-Felin (“the mill”)

Welsh singer/songwriter Cerys Matthews and her husband welcomed their first child, a baby girl, in August of 2003.

They named her Glenys Pearl y-Felin.

The first two names are family names. The third, on the other hand, is Welsh for “the mill.”

Y-Felin (which I believe is pronounced uh VEL-in) is a reference to the ruins of a water mill located in the small Welsh village of Trefin, where the singer’s parents live.

For five centuries, the mill was used to ground wheat and barley. It closed in 1918.

The abandoned mill was memorialized in the famous Welsh poem “Melin Trefin,” written in the 1930s by a Welsh poet/preacher with a reduplicated name: William Williams. (He was also known by the bardic name Crwys, meaning “cross.”)

Sources:

Image: Water mill at Aber Draw by Lis Burke under CC BY-SA 2.0.

How did Robin Vee Strasser get her middle name?

Actress Robin V. Strasser (circa 1971)
Robin Vee Strasser

Many sources claim that American soap opera actress Robin Strasser, who was born on the day of Germany’s surrender at the end of World War II, was named “Robin Victory in Europe Strasser” at birth.

According to Robin Strasser’s blog, though, this isn’t quite true:

Born on May 7th, 1945 at Bronx Jewish Hospital. When my mother came out of the ether (mom’s were heavily medicated in those days) they told her “Congratulations, you have a baby girl, and the WAR is OVER in Europe”.

My mother, over-joyed at the news, and apparently over-come with a sincere patriotism said she wanted to name me: Robin Victory in Europe Strasser. “You can’t do that to a baby” said one of the nurses, and wrote instead Robin VEE Strasser on my birth certificate.

I never use a middle name, and were I (being a die-hard Francophile) to use a middle name, I’d be literal with V(victory) I(in) E(Europe) VIE…which means LIFE in French.

Tres bon n’est-ce pas?

Though Germany surrendered on May 7, Victory in Europe Day is May 8 because that’s when the Allies officially accepted the surrender.

Source: Robin Strasser’s Official autoBLOGgraphy

[Other WWII-related baby names: Dawn Siren, Dee Day, D-Day, Invasia Mae, Hai Hu, Jesse Roper, Linda Ann, Linda, Mi Hwa, Victory Pearl Harbor, Swoosie, Tunisia]

Baby name story: Pearl

On September 17, 1984, 37-year-old cooking instructor Diane Avoli was in the middle of teaching her students how to make stuffed cabbage when she went into labor.

She gave birth to a baby girl — her seventh daughter — just a few minutes later.

After the birth, the cooking students helped Diane and her husband choose a name. Here’s how Diane explained it:

They were saying that we should name her after something we were cooking, and someone jokingly suggested cabbage patch, but someone else said ‘pearl’ after a kind of barley we were cooking, so we picked that for a middle name.

The baby was named Kristen Pearl Avoli.

(According to Diane’s website, she has eight children. Her eighth is a boy.)

Sources:

  • “Class Gets Real Childbirth Lesson.” Tuscaloosa News 20 Sept. 1984: 3.
  • “Good thing the cooks could boil water.” Wilmington Morning Star 24 Sept. 1984: 2C.