Pierce
- Pronunciation
- [Pierce]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Rock
- Origin
- English
About the Name Pierce
Pierce descends from the Old French Piers, a medieval English form of Peter (see separate entry on Peter for the Greek Petros etymology meaning "rock" or "stone" — referring to the apostle Peter). The Pierce surname appears in English records continuously since the medieval period.
Notable bearers include the iconic American president Franklin Pierce (using Pierce as a surname, 1804–1869, the 14th US President 1853–1857); American actor Pierce Brosnan (Pierce Brendan Brosnan, born 1953, the iconic Irish-American actor whose career through 1995–2002 as James Bond made him one of the foundational figures of late-20th-century international film); American basketball star Pierce Brown (American author, born 1988, of the Red Rising Saga); and the iconic American actor Pierce Gagnon.
The name's transition from surname to American first name accelerated through the 2000s and 2010s, riding the broader American taste for surname-style first names alongside Carter, Cooper, and Mason. Pierce's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2010 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2018 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the in-built Peter-classical religious anchor, and the strong Pierce Brosnan James Bond cultural anchor. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Norman-French and contemporary American. Common nicknames Pierre (the related French form), Piers (alternate, the historical English spelling), and the rare Pi each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Pierce, Piers, and Peirce have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Piers (English alternate), Pierre (French), Petros (Greek original), and the broader Peter/Petros family.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Pierce
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Pierce by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2015 with 648 boys named Pierce (boy rank #466 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #505 for boys (598 US births). That's 39 places below its 2015 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
Paste the snippet below on any HTML page. Includes a credit link back to 9BabyNames — please keep it intact.
Where in the US Is Pierce Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Pierce the strongest states are South Dakota, Connecticut, Nebraska.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Dakota | #256 | 17 |
| 2 | Connecticut | #371 | 65 |
| 3 | Nebraska | #383 | 56 |
| 4 | Kansas | #412 | 87 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | #434 | 118 |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | #449 | 210 |
| 7 | Arkansas | #463 | 52 |
| 8 | Louisiana | #463 | 108 |
| 9 | Iowa | #467 | 65 |
| 10 | Missouri | #480 | 117 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #662 | 101 |
| 2 | Arizona | #658 | 86 |
| 3 | New York | #612 | 225 |
| 4 | Oklahoma | #609 | 56 |
| 5 | Alabama | #608 | 50 |
| 6 | Washington | #600 | 105 |
| 7 | California | #590 | 463 |
| 8 | Mississippi | #580 | 16 |
| 9 | Tennessee | #560 | 120 |
| 10 | Kentucky | #560 | 64 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Pierce in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Pierce
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Pierce.
- Pierce Brosnan — Movie Actor (1953)
Looking for names like Pierce?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Pierce to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Pierce against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
Pierce Baby Name Ideas
- The Best Middle Names for John: Pairings That Give a One-Syllable Classic More Range
- Succession-Inspired Baby Names: Power, Dynasty, and the Roy Family Names
- Arthurian Baby Names: Knights, Queens, and the Legends of Camelot
- Boy Names That Can't Be Shortened
- Unique Hipster Baby Names for Boys and Girls: A Blend of Vintage Charm and Modern
- Top 20 Rarest Boy Names in 2024
- Unique Billionaire Boy Names: A List of Wealth-Inspired Names with Meanings
- Triplet Boy Names - Triplet Names For Boys
- 35 Gorgeous Girl Names Inspired By American First Ladies
- Top 1000 Most Popular Boy Names In U.S. Of 2015
- 290 Boy Names Inspired By Disney Films
- 9 Presidential Baby Names After US Presidents
- 28 Boy Names Inspired by United States Presidents