Perl is a rare spelling. It is summarised with Pearl, which shares its sound and spelling pattern.
Meaning not yet researched.
Perl: US girls given the name each year, 1880 to 2025, from Social Security card applications. 32 in 2025. Its best rank was #4,170 in 2023.
US births per year · SSA card applications
Peaked at #4,170 in 2023; #4,436 in 2025. Every baby recorded as Perl in 2025 was a girl.
Baby name · US data 1880–2025
#4,436 for US girls in 2025. Its best year was 2023, at #4,170.
Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for any year. Years with fewer than five babies of a sex are not published by SSA and show as zero.
Perl: US girls and boys given the name each year from 1880 to 2025. 32 girls in 2025. Peak: #4,170 in 2023 · most girls in one year: 35 (2023).
In 2025, 32 US girls were named Perl, making it the 4,436th most common girls’ name of the year, up 972 places from #5,408 in 2024. That is 8 more than the 24 girls named Perl in 2024. Its best rank for girls was #4,170, reached in 2023. That year also had the most girls given the name: 35. For comparison, it was #6,662 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
Fewer than five US boys were named Perl in 2025, so it does not appear in that year’s SSA list for boys. Its best rank for boys was #1,011, reached in 1883. The most boys given the name in a single year was 9, in 1924. For comparison, it was unranked (under five boys) in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
Social Security card records list Perl in 54 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 1883 with 5 babies. In all, 701 US babies have been given the name, 88% of them girls and 12% boys. Its busiest decade was the 2010s, with 216 babies named Perl.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 272 US girls were named Perl; the busiest of those years was 2023, with 35. In 2025 that was about 1 in 50,227 of the girls in SSA’s list for the year.
Related spellings in the SSA files include Pearl (163,010 babies since 1880), Perla (20,836 babies since 1880) and Pearle (2,821 babies since 1880).
Meaning not yet researched.
We publish a meaning only with a cited source and a confidence label, and never generate one. Meanings are being researched for the most common names first.
Numbers are all-time US births. Links come from Wikidata’s “said to be the same as” (P460, CC0) and our spelling rule: at most two letters different, with the same sound pattern.
No nicknames listed for Perl in the open dataset we use.
Source: carltonnorthern/nicknames (Apache-2.0).
Births and national rank for each year SSA lists the name, newest first.
| Year | Girls | Girls rank | Boys | Boys rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 32 | #4,436 | — | — |
| 2024 | 24 | #5,408 | — | — |
| 2023 | 35 | #4,170 | — | — |
| 2022 | 29 | #4,766 | — | — |
| 2021 | 25 | #5,205 | — | — |
| 2020 | 21 | #5,805 | — | — |
| 2019 | 24 | #5,420 | — | — |
| 2018 | 24 | #5,423 | — | — |
| 2017 | 25 | #5,300 | — | — |
| 2016 | 33 | #4,414 | — | — |
| 2015 | 19 | #6,662 | — | — |
| 2014 | 23 | #5,752 | — | — |
| 2013 | 20 | #6,420 | — | — |
| 2012 | 17 | #7,383 | — | — |
| 2011 | 11 | #10,232 | — | — |
| 2010 | 20 | #6,578 | — | — |
| 2009 | 22 | #6,255 | — | — |
| 2008 | 12 | #9,942 | — | — |
| 2007 | 16 | #8,011 | — | — |
| 2006 | 12 | #9,761 | — | — |
| 2005 | 14 | #8,230 | — | — |
| 2004 | 20 | #6,153 | — | — |
| 2003 | 9 | #11,107 | — | — |
| 2002 | 13 | #8,177 | — | — |
| 2001 | 15 | #7,233 | — | — |
| 2000 | 7 | #12,807 | — | — |
| 1999 | 7 | #12,330 | — | — |
| 1998 | 9 | #9,895 | — | — |
| 1997 | 9 | #9,617 | — | — |
| 1996 | 9 | #9,371 | — | — |
| 1994 | 5 | #15,109 | — | — |
| 1992 | 11 | #7,893 | — | — |
| 1988 | 7 | #10,059 | — | — |
| 1987 | 5 | #12,678 | — | — |
| 1984 | 6 | #10,000 | — | — |
| 1981 | 5 | #11,637 | — | — |
| 1978 | 5 | #10,944 | — | — |
| 1977 | 6 | #9,295 | — | — |
| 1967 | 5 | #7,559 | — | — |
| 1931 | — | — | 5 | #4,195 |
| 1930 | — | — | 5 | #4,418 |
| 1929 | 5 | #5,134 | — | — |
| 1924 | — | — | 9 | #3,198 |
| 1923 | — | — | 6 | #4,139 |
| 1920 | — | — | 7 | #3,741 |
| 1919 | — | — | 5 | #4,647 |
| 1918 | — | — | 7 | #3,623 |
| 1917 | — | — | 7 | #3,473 |
| 1916 | — | — | 5 | #4,347 |
| 1915 | — | — | 7 | #3,319 |
| 1913 | — | — | 7 | #2,442 |
| 1892 | — | — | 5 | #1,211 |
| 1887 | — | — | 5 | #1,032 |
| 1883 | — | — | 5 | #1,011 |
About the data: counts are Social Security card applications for US births, for names given to at least five babies of a sex in a year (SSA, names.zip, public domain). Ranks follow SSA’s own order: most births first, ties alphabetical. Files retrieved 2026-10-05 (checksum on our sources page).