The baby name Percy has gone from forgotten antique to hero in just a decade or two.
Thanks to Mary Renee for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.
WHAT DOES THE NAME PERCY MEAN?
The meaning of the name Percy depends on whether you’re asking about just Percy … or Percy as a nickname for something longer.
First, let’s assume it’s Percy alone.
William de Percy came to England as part of the Norman Conquest. For his efforts, he became a landholder in England, and his descendants would wield serious power during the Tudor and Stewart eras as the Dukes of Northumberland.
The family’s roots trace to a French village known as Percy-en-Auge. Family tradition holds that the Romans named it after a legion previously posted to Persia. They became Perci and then Percy.
That’s not the only theory. It’s also possible that Percy means:
- It could come from the old French percer, meaning to pierce. There’s a medieval French epic called the Roman de Renart. It’s about a fox, known as Reynard in English. In the French tales, Renart has a son called Percehaie – pierce hedge. It might refer to the way foxes break into enclosures to steal chickens.
- All of this is a long way of saying that Percy might have meant fox – in a roundabout way.
- Others suggest that Percy meant “skillful warrior,” one who could pierce another’s armor. That’s probably folk etymology, but it’s easy to see the appeal.
In any case, plenty of aristocratic surnames filtered into general use as given names. Clarence, Howard, Spencer, Douglas, Neville, Percy.
PERSEUS and PERCIVAL
Long before the Middle Ages, Perseus appeared in Greek mythology.
The son of Zeus and Danae, he was exiled as a child, but grew into a great hero. Perseus slayed the Gorgon Medusa, and then the Kraken, too, before marrying the princess Andromeda – at least in some versions of his story. Because it was made into a movie – Clash of the Titans – and then remade again, Perseus is more familiar than some.
Perseus might come from the Greek word pertho, meaning “to destroy.”
There’s also Percival, one of the most familiar Knights of the Round Table. He was one of the few knights to survive Arthur’s death. Some stories make him a commoner who rose through the ranks. In other versions, he’s of noble birth but raised in seclusion by a widowed mother. Either way, Percival earns his knighthood. The story of his quest to find the Holy Grail is among the best known.
Where did the name Percival come from? Geoffrey of Monmouth called one of his knights Peredur, a Welsh hero’s name that appeared in earlier legends. Chretien de Troyes may have been influenced by Peredur when he named his hero Percival. Alternately, Percival may have come from an Old French phrase percer val – to pierce the valley.
PETER
One last theory: Percy is quite close to the surname Pierce.
Pierce evolved from Piers, a Middle English form of Peter. Peter, in turns, comes from the Greek petros – rock.
Despite the similar sounds between Piers and Percy, there’s no clear connection.
Speaking of unrelated names, Percy is also not a cousin to Persis, a woman’s name mentioned in the New Testament, or the Greek goddess name Persephone. Though it’s easy to imagine Percy – or Persie? – as a nickname for both.
FAMOUS PERCYS
A long list of famous figures have answered to the name Percy, ever since William the Conqueror brought all those Norman names to England.
A few include:
- Readers might recognize Sir Percy Blakeney, rescuer of aristocrats during the French Revolution, from The Scarlet Pimpernel
- Percy Bysshe Shelley is among the most influential English poets, and a leader of Romanticism
- Percy Weasley is one of Arthur and Molly’s children, brother to Ginny, Ron, Fred, George, Charlie, and Bill
- A Thomas the Tank Engine character goes by the name
- From the 1950s into the 1980s, English actor Percy Herbert was a mainstay in British television and film
- Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant answers to the nickname Percy
- R&B’s Percy Sledge sang “When a Man Loves a Woman” in 1966
- A personal favorite: Marks & Spencer offers a line of sweets under the name Percy Pig
But all of these pale compared to the reigning pop culture Percy.
PERCY JACKSON
Rick Riordan’s YA series started with The Lightning Thief in 2005.
His Percy was born Perseus. He’s an ordinary enough 12 year old boy. But then strange things happen – he battles a teacher-turned-monster with a pen-turned-sword; a classmate turns out to be a satyr. Eventually, he learns that his dad is the god Poseidon and he’s a demigod.
Adventures follows.
And follows! There are seven books in the series as of 2024. Riordan has also given us more books in the Percy Jackson universe, including ones featuring the Roman, Egyptian, and Norse gods.
The books were adapted for a not-wildly-successful film series in 2010 and 2013. (They never made it past book two.)
Now Disney+ has rebooted Percy Jackson as a series. After a successful first season, the second installment is expected in 2025.
HOW POPULAR IS PERCY?
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when name data is first reported in the US, the baby name Percy routinely appeared in the Top 200.
After all, popular American baby names once included Cecil, Leslie, and Guy – all Top 100 choices circa 1900. Percy fits with traditional boys’ names from that long ago era.
By the 1990s, though, the baby name Percy had exited the US Top 1000 entirely.
As of 2023, just 112 boys were named Percy in the US.
In addition:
- 123 were named Perseus
- 63 were called Percival
Chances are that some of those boys might also answer to Percy.
POLISHED HERO NAME
Can Percy make a comeback?
Maybe. It fits with polished, buttoned-up boy names. File it somewhere between Edwin and Jasper. The fictional hero makes it sound current than many an old school boys’ name, even if it’s not really back in favor right now.
Plus there’s an entire generation of parents raised on Percy Jackson – first the books, and now the Disney series.
It could be just enough to make romantic, old school Percy sound like the perfect name to follow names like Lionel, Winston, and Harvey back into favor.
What do you think of the baby name Percy?
First published on February 22, 2017, this post was revised on February 26, 2025.
