Pearlman

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name borne by people in English-speaking and Jewish communities, often linked to an occupation involving pearls
2. A surname carried by individuals of various backgrounds, traditionally associated with someone who dealt in or worked with pearls
3. A hereditary family name used across several countries, whose origins are often traced to a trade connected with pearls

Etymology: Pearlman is an English surname, and as a surname its origin is an occupational one: it was given to someone who worked with pearls. The "man" element is the Middle English and Old English "mann", meaning a person, as in many trade and status surnames. The first element, "pearl", comes from Old French "perle", which in turn is generally traced to a Late Latin diminutive of "perna", a word for a kind of shellfish, so the gem is named after the shell it came from. Pearlman follows the same pattern as Goldsmith or Fletcher, with "man" tacked onto a noun to name a person's trade or association. Because "pearl" was an expensive and fashionable commodity in medieval and early modern Europe, a family name linked to dealing in pearls would have marked someone in a relatively prestigious line of work. Many such names are Jewish or Ashkenazi in origin, where "Perlman" and similar spellings also appear as German and Yiddish-influenced surnames, and the spelling varies with transliteration and regional usage.