Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • English : from Middle English pe(e)re ‘pear’ (Old English pere, peru, from Latin pirum), a metonymic occupational name for a grower or seller of pears, or a topographic name for someone who lived by a pear tree or pear orchard.
  • English : nickname from Middle English pere ‘peer’, ‘companion’ (Old French pe(e)r, from Latin par ‘equal’).
  • Jewish : Americanization of some like-sounding Ashkenazic surname; e.g. possibly a shortened form of a surname such as Pearl, Pearlman, or Pearlstein.