Peri
Feminine · “A fairy”
Peri is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,465 girls against 10 boys since 1880.
A peri is a Persian spirit — a beautiful winged being, fallen but not damned, which Persian poetry uses constantly as an image of loveliness. English borrowed the word in the eighteenth century and Thomas Moore made it famous.
How old is the name Peri?
Peri first appears in US birth records in 1936 — 89 years ago. The typical Peri alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 2,300 people named Peri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Peri most popular?
Peri peaked in 1960, reaching #1131 nationally. Today it ranks #5554, 4,423 places below that high. See the whole 1960 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From pairikā to Peri
The story of Peri
Persian and Urdu poetry uses parī as a standard image of beauty, and English took the word in the eighteenth century from translations of Persian material. Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh, published in 1817, contains Paradise and the Peri, which was enormously popular and set to music by Schumann in 1843; that is how most English speakers met the word. Peri is also an ordinary Turkish women's name. Its American record is small and mid-century, peaking in 1960, and it functions there as much as a short form of Perry and Pearl as a borrowing of the Persian word.
Meaning
A fairy, a winged spirit
From Persian parī, a supernatural being of great beauty, from Avestan pairikā. In Zoroastrian tradition the pairikās were malign; in later Persian and Islamic usage the peri became benign and beautiful. The reading is settled. Peri also serves in English as a short form of Peregrine and, occasionally, of Pearl.
How the name formed
- pairikā
- parī
- Peri
Related forms: پری · Peri · پری
Pronouncing Peri
PEH-ree
Two syllables, stress on the first. Persian parī puts the weight on the second, pah-REE, with a long final vowel; the English saying is the borrowed one.
Nicknames for Peri
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
- 1936
- Most girls named
- 195978 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1131reached in 1960
- Change vs 2023
- −31.3%22 in 2025, from 32
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.
Peri in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- پری in Persian — transliteration
- Peri in Turkish — same name
- پری in Urdu — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, New Jersey.
Peris among us
people named Peri are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 73,058 born in 2025 was named Peri
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Peri
- #5554
- Peri on the 2025 chart
- #829
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Peri went to 22 girls in 2025, but Perry and Perri are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 131, which makes it the 829th most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,725 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 12,269 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 73,058 for Peri itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jerline test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Peri's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jerline climbed just as high around 1932, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jerline's path sketches the road Peri is walking now.
Peri 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
Peri beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Peri in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and unusually lovely.
- Four letters and two syllables travel anywhere.
- Everyone can say it after one hearing.
- English and Persian put the stress in different places.
- Peri, Perri and Perry are three spellings of nearly one sound.
- It reads as a short form of Perry to many Americans.
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What they receive
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Peri
Feminine · #5554 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Peris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,300 people named Peri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Peri?
- Peri is one of 3 recorded spellings. Perry is the more common one — 83 births in 2025 against 22 for Peri.
- How popular is the name Peri in 2025?
- Peri ranks #5554 among US girl names in 2025, with 22 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Peri?
- About 1 in every 73,058 US girls born in 2025 was named Peri — 22 in all.
- Will my child share the name Peri with classmates?
- Peri will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Peri
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eda#5554 · Phebe#5554 · Felicia#5554 · Audie#5554 · Maryellen#5554 · Warren#5554 · Ruthann#5554 · Nettie#5554
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Peri? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Peri and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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