Pleas
Masculine · “From Pleasant”
Pleas is a clipping of Pleasant, and the word underneath has an older legal life: a plea was a lawsuit before it was a request, and one English court kept the old sense in its name for six hundred years.
How old is the name Pleas?
Pleas was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Pleas alive today was born around 1924, making them about 101 years old. About 200 people named Pleas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Pleas most popular?
Pleas peaked in 1882, reaching #514 nationally. See the whole 1882 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Pleasant to Pleas
The story of Pleas
The Court of Common Pleas heard cases between subject and subject — disputes not involving the crown — and its name preserves a sense of the word that ordinary English has lost. A plea was the case itself, the whole action, which is why pleadings are documents and why a defendant enters one. The narrowing to a request, and then to an emotional appeal, happened later and entirely outside the law. The legal vocabulary is full of these: words that kept a meaning for centuries after the general language moved on, which is why legal English so often sounds like a different language rather than a formal register of the same one.
Meaningscholars disagree
From Pleasant
Almost certainly the short form of Pleasant, which was given as a man's name in the American South. Whether a given family understood it as a name in its own right or as an abbreviation the clerk wrote down is not recorded.
How the name formed
- Pleasant
- Pleas
Pronouncing Pleas
pleez
One syllable, said like the plural of the legal word rather than like please.
Nicknames for Pleas
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
- 191625 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #514reached in 1882
- Change vs 1978
- 0.0%5 in 1988, from 5
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.
Pleass among us
people named Pleas are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Pleas sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is one syllable and cannot be shortened further.
- The virtue name behind it is transparent and kindly.
- It is genuinely and completely rare.
- It will be read as the common word and heard as please.
- It is a clipping, so the longer form will be assumed.
- The name belongs to one region and one century of the record.
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Pleas
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Pleass are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Pleas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Pleas in 2025?
- Pleas is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Pleas with classmates?
- Pleas will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More P names
The most-given names starting with P, all years combined.
Paul#262 · Patrick#235 · Peter#187 · Philip#527 · Phillip#651 · Parker#102 · Preston#299 · Pedro#455
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Pleas? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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