MEANING & HISTORY
What does Percival mean?
Percival comes from Old French Perceval, the knight’s name used by Chrétien de Troyes. Its French shape suggests pierce and valley.
Scholars have also proposed an older Celtic personal name behind the literary form, so the apparent French phrase is not a universally settled ultimate origin. The name’s secure context is Arthurian romance and the Grail tradition, rather than a promise that its bearer will be a warrior.
References for this explanation
Pronunciation & syllables
Dictionary readings are kept by language. Select the reading that matches your intended pronunciation. Dots show the source’s written divisions; they are not a universal syllable count across languages.
Wiktionary contributors / Kaikki / Wiktextract · CC BY-SA 4.0
Origin and name formation
Language-specific accounts from the dictionary. A shared spelling can have more than one history.
EnglishEtymology & source
From Old French Perceval, name of a knight in a twelfth century Arthurian romance by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes. Shaped like Old French percier (“pierce”) + val (“valley”), but probably representing some Gaulish or Old Welsh name, possibly related to Welsh Peredur, from ber (“spear, lance”) (from Middle Welsh ber, from Proto-Brythonic *ber, from Proto-Celtic *beru (“spit”)) + dur (“hard metal, steel”) (see Latin durus). Cognate with German Parzival and Parsifal.
A male given name from the Celtic languages.
Wiktionary: Percival (English) ↗ · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0
Adapted from Wiktionary contributors via Kaikki/Wiktextract. Source accounts remain in their original English; editorial summaries and filters are adapted. Attribution and downloads
People with the name Percival
Public figures and other documented namesakes linked by an explicit given-name claim. This is a selection of records, not a popularity ranking.
DOCUMENTED NAMESAKE
Percival Alger
Filipino fencer
The record establishes the name association, not the person’s intended meaning, pronunciation or ancestry. Descriptions are attributed to Wikidata contributors (CC0).
Use in Philippine-linked records
Public-record transcription
3
eligible source records · 2001
This spelling is reported in an openly licensed transcription of elected-candidate records. This is a record count, not a birth count or national popularity measure.
OpenHalalan / COMELEC ↗Wikidata
2
distinct person records with an explicit given-name claim
Community-edited coverage, not a census or birth registry. Examples: Percival Alger, Percival Intalan
PSA · OFFICIAL BIRTH RECORDS
Percival in the birth records
Exact spelling and stated year in the published name tables. Read the counts as individual snapshots.
Tables included: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. The 2016 fact sheet lists five names per sex; the later tables include ten. Missing counts are not inferred. Sex categories follow the official tables, independently of dictionary gender labels. Explore the official tables →
Similar names to Percival
Names with a similar opening or ending, ordered by spelling distance. Similar spelling does not imply the same meaning or origin.
Names in this collection
- Perlita♀Diminutive of Perla; little or dear pearl
- Pepita·Spanish affectionate form of Josefa
- Perla♀Pearl
- Pearl♀Pearl, the mollusc-formed gem
- Pedring♂Pedro familiar form through Pedrito
- Pelagia♀Of the sea
- Pepay♀Josefa familiar form through Pepa
- Peping♂Familiar form of Felipe; horse-friend name family
What rhymes with Percival?
No dictionary-confirmed rhyme match is available for this spelling in the current catalogue.
Explore Percival further
Follow the sources
- OpenHalalan — pinned 2001 COMELEC transcription (opens in a new tab)
Source-reported given-name form in a row with a separate explicit middle initial; ODbL-1.0.
- COMELEC — 2001 List of Elected Candidates (opens in a new tab)
Original document identified by the transcription; selected PDF entries were spot-checked, not every imported row.
- Wikidata given-name item Q1115088 — Percival (opens in a new tab)
Given-name identity, native labels, language associations and explicit class where present; not lexical meaning or population frequency.
- Wikidata — Percival Alger (opens in a new tab)
Explicit given-name claim P735 linking to Q1115088 and citizenship claim P27 linking to Philippines Q928; community-edited evidence, not a civil-registry record.
- Wikidata — Percival Intalan (opens in a new tab)
Explicit given-name claim P735 linking to Q1115088 and citizenship claim P27 linking to Philippines Q928; community-edited evidence, not a civil-registry record.
- Wiktionary contributors — Percival (English) (opens in a new tab)
Language-specific given-name etymology; shared spelling does not prove every bearer has this origin.
- Wiktionary: Percival (opens in a new tab)
Name formation and linguistic history; consulted existing imported etymology.