Pearlene
Pearlene is a girl's name that peaked in 1938, when it was the 875th most popular in the United States. It has not appeared in the national data since 1978. About 800 Pearlenes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 76.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Pearlene
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,958
- Estimated living today
- 800
- Median age today
- 76
- Peak year
- 1938
- Best rank
- 875th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1906
How old the living Pearlenes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,958 babies given the name since 1906, about 800 are alive — 41 in every hundred. Roughly 0 of them are children and 710 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1949 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin a coined name
A variant of Pearline.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where Pearlene is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Pearlene is most concentrated in Mississippi (13.1×), Arkansas (12.1×), North Carolina (6.3×), Alabama (5.3×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1938
The most popular girls’ names the year Pearlene peaked:
Related names
Pearlene against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.