Origin and popularity of the name PERRY

Origin

Perry : 1: Welsh: Anglicized form of Welsh ap Herry ‘son of Herry’ a variant of the personal name Harry (see Harris).2: English: topographic name for someone who lived near a pear tree (Middle English piri(e) peri(e) puri(e) Old English pirige pyrige) or a habitational name for someone who owned or came from a place so named. This surname and a number of variants have been established in Ireland since the 17th century.

Most : 1: German: metonymic occupational name for a producer or seller of must i.e. unfermented grape juice Middle High (and Low) German most (from Latin mustum vinum ‘young (i.e. fresh) wine’). The same term was also used to denote perry and cider since these do not keep well and need to be drunk while still fresh.2: Dutch (Van der Most): topographic name for someone who lived by marshy land from Middle Dutch mos most ‘pool swamp bog’.3: Polish and Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic): topographic name from Slavic most ‘bridge’ or a habitational name from any of several places called with this word.4: Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic): from German Most ‘young (i.e. fresh) wine’ (see 1 above) one of surnames distributed at random by Austrian clerks.5: English (Lancashire): variant of Must. This form of the surname is rare in Britain.

Pyrah : perhaps a variant of Perry via the alternative pronunciation /pɪri/ or its alternative northern form Peary alternatively spelled Piery with the common northern alteration of final -y to -er and -ah. If this is right Py(e)rah would originally be a spelling of /pɪrə/ or /pɪərə/ rather than /paɪrə/. Correlations of Py(e)rah with Perry include James Perry 1700 William Pyerah 1773 in IGI (New Malton NR Yorks); Robt. Pyrer 1723 Jane Perry 1747 in IGI (Deane by Bolton Lancs); James Perry 1723 Joseph Pyra 1790 in IGI (Calverley WR Yorks); Ellen Pyrer 1730 John Perry 1780 in IGI (Formby Lancs); and Richard Perry 1733 Bettey Pyrah 1748 in IGI (Batley WR Yorks). These correlations could alternatively be coincidental pairings of unrelated names in the same parish or town in which case the origin of Pyrah remains to be discovered.

More

Subject to the Terms and Conditions of Ancestry

Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 218,593 individuals with the name PERRY on Geneanet.

This last name in the family trees

See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name PERRY