Pearlie

Where Pearlie comes from

Pearlie hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #421 among girls — 16 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1887
    Peak, #262
    65 babies named Pearlie — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1894
    Pearlie Posey born
    African American artist
  4. 1920
    Pearlie Kennedy Pettway born
    African American quilter
  5. 1969
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #2,515.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Pearlie Posey · African American artist, 1894–1984
  • Pearlie Kennedy Pettway · African American quilter, 1920–1982

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.