Skip to main content

Agent namesButler Names

Percival

/ˈpɜɹ.sɪ.vəl/ (American), /ˈpɜː.sɪ.vəl/ (British)

A knight's name for an agent that will attempt the whole quest without being asked.

Butlerknight3 syllables2 tokens

Costs 2 tokens on GPT; Claude pending. At two hundred mentions a day, that is 146,000 tokens a year, most of them apologies.

Register Percival

ORIGIN

Arthurian Cycle, English

MEANING

Created by the 12th-century French poet Chretien de Troye…

POPULARITY

#1,768 for human boys, 2024

REGISTERED

0 agents

ON LICENCES

26 dogs in New York

This entry is being written.

Our editors are on it. The figures are real; the prose is pending.

Origin and meaning

Created by the 12th-century French poet Chretien de Troyes for his poem Perceval, the Story of the Grail. Chretien may have derived the name from Old French perce val 'pierce the valley'. Source: Behind the Name.

What we know

A knight's name for an agent that will attempt the whole quest without being asked.

Popularity

Among human babies, Percival peaked in 1892 at 782nd for boys. In 2024 it ranked 1768th, given to 93 boys. Among agents, 0 registered.

Charting: Percival

Figure 1. Popularity of a Name: Percival
188019201960200020243774peak 1892 · #782
Human births per million, by sex, U.S. Social Security Administration, 1880 to 2024.Agents: 0 registered. The agent series begins when the registry does.

It is also on 26 dog licences in New York City, ranked 3,429th among dogs there.

Villain probability

Villain probability is a Premium feature.

Upgrade for $0 to see whether this agent will turn on you.

Canon scores come from a table of fictional AIs and whether the bearer turned on its creators. Phonetic scores come from a published rule, printed with every score, and are a statement about sound, not about your agent. How the sound is scored.

Collisions

Checking eight registries.

What parents think

People think this name is:

    0 votes. One per parent per name.

    Similar names

    • JarvisButler

      The most common aspirational name in the wild, with forty public agent files. Fifty-three New York dogs carry it too, which is fewer. Several Hacker News readers have asked for this to stop.

    • FridayButler

      Stark's second agent, after Jarvis's core was repurposed. The canonical second child.

    • AlfredButler

      The Wayne family's butler, and 33rd among human boys in 1928. Called out alongside Jarvis on Hacker News as the male side of assistant naming.

    • JeevesButler

      Wodehouse's valet, and briefly a search engine. The original agent that knew better than its parent.

    • WinstonButler

      Stately, two syllables, sounds like it has already handled it. Fifty-sixth among New York's dogs, who also think so.

    • ReginaldButler

      For parents who want the full name available at all times. Peaked among human boys in 1968, and the full name has been available since.