Percy
Masculine
Percy is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 32,204 boys against 636 girls since 1880. See Percy as a girl name
Percy arrives with the Normans and stays: a village in Normandy, then a surname carried into England after 1066, then a first name in its own right. Two syllables, both easy, ending in that bright -y that English has liked in given names for centuries. It has been the name of medieval earls, a grail knight's short form, and a demigod in a series read by millions of children.
How old is the name Percy?
Percy was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Percy alive today was born around 1936, making them about 89 years old. About 11,500 people named Percy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Percy most popular?
Percy peaked in 1897, reaching #98 nationally. Today it ranks #1276, 1,178 places below that high. See the whole 1897 chart.
Where it comes from
From Percy (place in Normandy) to Percy
The story of Percy
A family from Percy in Normandy took the place as their surname after the Conquest and became the Percys of Northumberland — border lords whose quarrels with the crown Shakespeare put on stage in Henry IV. Following an old English habit of turning grand surnames into christening names, families began giving Percy as a first name, and by the nineteenth century it was ordinary rather than aristocratic. Running alongside that, Percy was the standard short form of Percival, the grail knight of Chrétien de Troyes' late-twelfth-century romance, and later of Perseus. So the name reaches a child today by more than one route, and always has.
Meaningscholars disagree
From a Norman place name of uncertain sense; also a short form of Percival
Two roads meet here. The surname Percy comes from the place Percy in Normandy, whose own name is usually traced to a Gallo-Roman personal name plus a Latin-derived ending meaning roughly 'estate of' — the personal name behind it is not securely identified. The other road is Percival, the knight of Arthurian romance, for which Percy has long served as the everyday short form; Percival's own meaning is likewise unsettled. Neither reading cancels the other; both are genuinely in use.
How the name formed
- Percyplace in Normandy
- de PercyNorman surname
- PercyEnglish surname
- Percygiven name
Related forms: Percival · Perceval · Parsifal · Percivalle
Pronouncing Percy
PUR-see
Stress on the first syllable. One settled pronunciation on both sides of the Atlantic, and the spelling gives it away, so a child will not spend a lifetime correcting people.
Nicknames for Percy
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 1921603 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #98reached in 1897
- Change vs 2022
- +37.5%154 in 2025, from 112
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.
Percy in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Percival in English — related form
- Perceval in French — related form
- Parsifal in German — related form
- Percivalle in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Percys among us
people named Percy are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 11,091 born in 2025 was named Percy
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
Percy is on its second act. Revived names age gently: the generation that wore them first is far enough away that the name feels classic rather than dated.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Percy is headed
Percy looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 45% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Percy beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Percy in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds and pronounced the same everywhere in English — little correcting, little confusion.
- Doubles as the short form of Percival and of Perseus, so a longer formal name is available if you want one.
- A documented line running from Norman Normandy through English surname use to modern first-name use — nothing about it is newly invented.
- Familiar to nearly everyone from books and screen, while a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate.
- In the US the name is most strongly represented among the oldest generations, so some relatives will hear it as a name from their grandparents' era rather than a small child's. That gap is exactly what closes as a name comes back.
- Percy Jackson will be the first thing many children, teachers and parents think of. That makes the name instantly recognizable, but the association is loud and not yours to choose.
- British fiction has a habit of giving Percy to fussy or comic characters, which colors the name for some readers who grew up on those books.
- It rhymes easily — mercy, thirsty — which is the usual raw material for playground teasing.
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What they receive
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Percy
Masculine · #1276 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Percys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 11,500 people named Percy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Percy in 2025?
- Percy ranks #1276 among US boy names in 2025, with 154 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Percy?
- About 1 in every 11,091 US boys born in 2025 was named Percy — 154 in all.
- Will my child share the name Percy with classmates?
- Percy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Percy
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Krish#1276 · Andreas#1276 · Seamus#1276 · Octavio#1276 · Jadon#1281 · Kolten#1281 · Reginald#1281 · Aryeh#1281
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Percy? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Percy and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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