Percival

//ˈpɜː(ɹ)sɪvəl// name

name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A male given name from the Celtic languages.

    "Lancelot Fortescue! What a name! And what was the other son - Percival? He wondered what the first Mrs Fortescue had been like? She had a curious taste in Christian names..."

  2. 2
    A surname originating as a patronymic.
  3. 3
    An unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fremont County, Iowa, United States.
  4. 4
    A former hamlet in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Example

More examples

"Clyde joined the search for Percival Lowell's "Planet X", a planet beyond Neptune."

Etymology

From Old French Perceval, name of a knight in a twelfth century Arthurian romance by the French poet Chrétien de Troyes. Shaped like Old French percier (“pierce”) + val (“valley”), but probably representing some Gaulish or Old Welsh name, possibly related to Welsh Peredur, from ber (“spear, lance”) (from Middle Welsh ber, from Proto-Brythonic *ber, from Proto-Celtic *beru (“spit”)) + dur (“hard metal, steel”) (see Latin durus). Cognate with German Parzival and Parsifal.

More for "percival"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.