Pearl
Pearl is ranked 802nd among girls in 2024 (350 births). Its best rank was 24th, in 1889–1890, 1900.
- Rank in 2024
- #802down 2 from 2023
- Births in 2024
- 3500.02% of girls
- Peak year
- 19184,521 births
- Best rank
- #24first in 1889
- Since 1880
- 162,657people given the name
The story in the numbers
158,735 girls have been named Pearl in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1918, with 4,521 births — 0.39% of all girls recorded that year.
The name has all but left use: 350 births in 2024, against 4,521 at the peak.
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1918, and the 1910s alone account for 21%. It has spent 121 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 47 of them in the top 100.
It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 3,922 boys have also been given it, 2.4% of the total.
Rank among girls, year by year
By decade
| Decade | girls named Pearl | |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 10,903 | |
| 1890s | 19,054 | |
| 1900s | 20,913 | |
| 1910s | 33,834 | |
| 1920s | 32,774 | |
| 1930s | 13,295 | |
| 1940s | 7,778 | |
| 1950s | 4,757 | |
| 1960s | 2,594 | |
| 1970s | 1,471 | |
| 1980s | 1,638 | |
| 1990s | 1,508 | |
| 2000s | 2,238 | |
| 2010s | 4,159 | |
| 2020s | 1,819 |
In 1918, its biggest year
Pearl was the 56th most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1918 were Mary, Helen, Dorothy, Margaret and Ruth. See all of 1918.
Names that rose and fell with Pearl
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Myrtlepeak 1918
- Orphapeak 1917
- Zulapeak 1922
- Blanchepeak 1917
- Hilmapeak 1915
- Oniepeak 1918
- Artiepeak 1916
- Blanchpeak 1924
What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.