Pearla
Feminine · “pearl”
A pearl is an injury. Something gets inside an oyster that the animal cannot expel, so it coats the intruder in the same material it makes its shell from, layer after layer, for years. What comes out is a wound that has been made smooth.
How old is the name Pearla?
Pearla first appears in US birth records in 1883 — 142 years ago. The typical Pearla alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 500 people named Pearla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Pearla most popular?
Pearla peaked in 1883, reaching #817 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 11,115 places below that high. See the whole 1883 chart.
Where it comes from
From perna to Pearla
The story of Pearla
The ham explanation is odd enough to be worth stating carefully. Latin perna meant a leg of pork, and Roman writers used the same word for a kind of mussel whose shell has that shape. A diminutive of it, something like pernula, is the likeliest ancestor of perla and so of pearl in every western European language. So the word for the most valued product of the sea may descend from the word for a joint of meat. As for the object, the process is genuinely defensive: a parasite or a fragment of shell lodges in the mantle, the animal isolates it in nacre, and the smoothness is the point of the exercise rather than a by-product.
Meaning
pearl
From the English word pearl, through Old French perle. The Latin behind it is usually given as perla, of disputed origin: the best account connects it with perna, which meant a leg or a ham and was also used for a bivalve shellfish shaped like one.
How the name formed
- perna
- perla
- pearl
- Pearla
Related forms: Perla · Perla
Pronouncing Pearla
PUR-lah
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Spanish and Italian Perla is PER-lah, with a clearer first vowel and a tapped r, and is much the commoner form of the name.
Nicknames for Pearla
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1883
- Most girls named
- 200625 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #817reached in 1883
- Change vs 2024
- +16.7%7 in 2025, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Pearla in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Perla in Spanish — same name
- Perla in Italian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Pearlas among us
people named Pearla are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Pearla
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Pearla sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Pearla beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Pearla in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning naming something concrete, valuable and easy to explain.
- Pearl is available as a shorter form with a long American record.
- It works in English, Spanish and Italian with only the first vowel shifting.
- Perla is the standard Spanish spelling and much commoner in the states where the name is used.
- Pearl is a gem name with a strong period association, which the added a does not remove.
- It is close enough to Perla, Pearl and Pearline to be substituted for any of them.
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What they receive
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Pearla
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Pearlas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Pearla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Pearla in 2025?
- Pearla ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Pearla?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Pearla — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Pearla with classmates?
- Pearla will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Pearla
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Breezy#11932 · Zaire#11932 · Elexis#11932 · Samera#11932 · Sadi#11932 · Abria#11932 · Diem#11932 · Jhoana#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Pearla? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Pearla and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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