Pernell — boys' name

What the Data Says About Pernell

The Social Security Administration has registered 3,031 babies named Pernell between 1915 and 2023, spanning 109 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Pernell currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2023. The name reached its historical peak in 1964, when 178 babies received it in a single year. Pernell is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 275 additional births since 1915.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Pernell performed strongest in the 1960s, accumulating 945 births during that ten-year window. Across the 12 decades of recorded activity, Pernell shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Virginia, which accounts for 168 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Louisiana and New York. In total, SSA state-level files list Pernell in 21 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Pernell in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 3,031 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.