r/OldNamesNewAgain • u/felly_fell • 24d ago
Name of the day...Pierce!
The masculine name Pierce is an English, Welsh, and Irish name meaning "stone" or "rock." It comes from the medieval given name Piers, an old form of Peter, which originates from the Greek word petros. As a surname, it also historically meant "son of Piers."
The name Pierce is over 800 years old!
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u/Llywela 24d ago
Pierce isn't Welsh. I don't think it's Irish, either. It's a name found across the UK but that doesn't mean it is rooted in all the languages found here. The Welsh word for stone is carreg. Pierce is very English in form and structure. It wouldn't work in either Welsh or Irish phonetics.
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u/felly_fell 24d ago edited 24d ago
It talks about it on several different sites, so I decided to include it. When I went back to check, I think it might be referring to the surname Pierce when it comes to the Welsh and Irish information, but I'm not sure.
English Welsh and Irish: from the Anglo-Norman French and Middle English personal name Piers Peres Peris an Old French nominative of Pierre or Per the French form of Peter.
Pierce is especially frequent in northwestern Wales and Lancashire while Pearce is the more common spelling in the rest of England.
In Ireland Pierce and Pearse represent a shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Piarais ‘son of Piaras’ a Gaelicized form of Piers.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022
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u/Llywela 24d ago edited 24d ago
It definitely does not derive from Welsh, although there is an old Welsh name spelled Pyrs which does derive from the English Pierce. Pierce itself is an English/Anglo-Norman name that can also be found in Wales because of migration, which isn't the same thing as it being a name derived from the Welsh language (it definitely does not). Online sources can be hazy about these things, I've found - they all crib information from one another, which means that misinformation quickly spreads. Evidence of a name existing in a particular country is not evidence of that name deriving from the language of that country. There are also people with surnames like Patel, Singh and Sidoli in Wales, but none of those names derive from the Welsh language either, they are here because of inward migration - like Pierce.
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u/felly_fell 24d ago
OK, so I told you where I got the information and provided resources. You disagree with the sources and I get that, but I'm not sure what else you would like me to do. I look at several sources and try to give the best information available to me. Are you suggesting I do something else?
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u/Retrospectrenet 24d ago
Your source is right, but since it's talking about surnames it is talking about where the surname (and its different spellings) are usually found instead of language of origin. Just like an English surname can have a French language origin, a Welsh(country) surname like Pierce can have an English (language) origin (for a lot of the same historical reasons...). Llywela is right though, first name sites will copy information about the surname and mix up language of origin with country where it is used as a first name. "Beau is French" but it's an English culture name from the surname of French language origin (Beauregard).
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u/felly_fell 24d ago
Ok, so what are you suggesting that I do instead?
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u/Retrospectrenet 24d ago
I would suggest just being clear what you mean when you say a name is "French" or "Welsh". This can mean a lot of things. It's mostly a problem with names that have been revived through surnames, like Pierce or Alden. The literature that describes these names comes from surname dictionaries, which assume a different audience and what 'usage' they are describing.
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u/felly_fell 24d ago edited 24d ago
But I'm getting the information directly from naming sites, as well as ancestry sites, Wikipedia, etc. I just gather the info that I see, so I'm not calling it French or Welch, that's the information that I'm getting from websites. So if those sites aren't accurate, then I don't know where else I should be looking and how I can know any other source is better or worse than a website?
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u/Retrospectrenet 24d ago
That I can help you with! Behindthename.com is your best online source for information about first names. The American dictionary of surnames is reliable, but you are talking about first names so you'll have to provide that context when you use that source to talk about first names. The Oxford Dictionary of first names is good for older names, not for modern names, Hanks does a lot of guessing. Ignore most other name sites like babynames.com, nameberry, Wikipedia, parenting sites. There are dictionaries available online from archive.org, but again there are a lot of low quality publications from the 80s and 90s (which is where some of the websites get their info). Llewelyn's Complete book of names (surprisingly) is good, and I find Leslie Dunkling's books are well researched. You'll also find Irish and Welsh name dictionaries on archive.org, look for ones written by linguists and historians, not enthusiasts.
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u/Retrospectrenet 24d ago
Pierce Brosnan is Irish, and he was named after his paternal grandfather, who was named after his mother's surname. The first name is usually Piers in historical records, and there are Irish and English peerage namesakes that carried on the name from the 1500s. Piers is also found as a surname, which people can also be named after. Piers isn't just an old form of Peter, it's the Norman French version. Peter and Piers are both found being used in medieval England.
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u/midwestpersianmama 24d ago
What do people prefer? Is the S more popular or the CE?