First name origins & meanings:
- Old French: Pierce the veil
- French: Piercing the valley
First name variations: Perceval, Percheval, Parsifal, Parsefal, Perce, Perci, Percival Last name origins & meanings:
- English (of Norman origin): habitational name from any of various
places in northern France, so called from the Gallo-Roman personal
name Persius + the locative suffix -acum. The suggestion
has also been made that it is a nickname from Old French
perce(r) ‘to pierce or breach’ + haie ‘hedge’,
‘enclosure’, referring either to a soldier remembered for his breach
of a fortification, or in jest to a poacher who was in the habit of
breaking into a private park.
- Percy is the name of a leading Northumbrian family, who were
instrumental in holding the English border against the Scots from
their stronghold at Alnwick. Their founder was a Norman, William de
Percy (?1030–96), 1st Baron Percy, who accompanied William the
Conqueror. Sir Henry Percy (1342–1408), 1st Earl of Northumberland,
and his son Sir Henry Percy (1364–1403), known as Harry Hotspur,
helped place Henry IV on the throne. The earldom, created in 1377, has
continued, on two occasions through female members, in the same family
to the present day. George Percy (1508–1632), son of the 8th Earl of Northumberland, was in VA from 1606 to 1612, serving briefly as governor.
This name appears in the following lists:
Black History/Civil Rights Leaders
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