Pierce — Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Mac Piarais
Meaning: 'son of Piers (Peter)'
Traditional stronghold: Wexford, Kerry
Pronunciation: PEERSS; Irish Mac Piarais: mock PEER-ish
History of the Pierce name
Pierce and its variants Pearse, Pearce and Pierse all descend from Piers, the Norman-French form of Peter, and arose as patronymics among Anglo-Norman settler families rather than from a single Gaelic sept. In County Wexford, Pierce became one of the characteristic names of the old English-settled baronies of Forth and Bargy; in Kerry, the Pierse family descended from the FitzMaurices of Lixnaw and held lands around Ballymacaquim for centuries. The Irish form Mac Piarais is best known from Pádraig Mac Piarais - Patrick Pearse - whose family used the Pearse spelling. The name remains modest in numbers but large in resonance, fixed forever to the 1916 Rising.
Variants: Pearse · Pearce · Pierse · Piers
Famous bearers of the name
- Patrick Pearse — Educationalist, writer and commander-in-chief of the 1916 Rising, executed at Kilmainham.
- Willie Pearse — Sculptor and 1916 rebel, executed alongside his brother Patrick.
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Murphy · O'Sullivan · O'Connor · McCarthy · Doyle · O'Connell · Fitzgerald · Kavanagh