Meanings
alternative Pursifull
- 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...
1953, Agatha Christie, A Pocket Full of Rye, page 20 - A surname originating as a patronymic.
- A former hamlet in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Origin
- Proto-Celtic*beru“spit”
- Proto-Brythonic*ber
- Middle Welshber
- WelshPeredur
- Old FrenchPerceval
- EnglishPercival
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 words from Old French, Welsh, Middle Welsh
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Percival. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Percival
“Percival.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Percival. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Percival,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Percival.
Source: Percival on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.