Pierrot History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
France

The history of the Pierrot name began during the Middle Ages in a region known as Brittany. The French name is derived from the popular French personal name Pierre, which comes from the ancient name Petros, or Peter, meaning "rock".

Early Origins of the Pierrot family

The surname Pierrot was first found in Brittany where they held a family seat in the seigneurie of Launay and Vieux Launay.

They also branched to the regions of Neufchatel, île-de-France, at Chazelle and Courcelles, the Franch Comte at Viseney, Paris (Ablancourt) and Geneva. They were elected to the noblesse as Barons of the Empire. The Pieroway variant is an interesting one. Some sources believe the name to be a Channel Islands variant and a branch of the family settled on Sandy Point, Newfoundland. Today the family can be found in Stephenville, St. Georges and in the Corner Brook area of Newfoundland. 1 Ada Pieroway of St. Georges, married Ronald MacDonald of Antigonish who won the second Boston Marathon in 1898 and Stella Pieroway, a teacher at St. Geroges, married James Ronald MacDonnell, Newfoundland politician who represented St. Georges in the Newfoundland House of Assembly from 1919 to 1923.

Jacques Perrault and his wife Marguerite (née Cache) of Saint-Jacques, Bourgogne, had two sons, François and Jacques. François, a merchant, and Jacques, a surgeon, travelled together to New France in the early 1700's. François married Suzanne Page, daughter of Guillaume and Elisabeth (née Letartre), in Quebec on 26th November 1715. Jacques married Marie-Elisabeth Navers, daughter of Jean-Baptiste and Marie-Françoise (née Sauvin), in Château-Richer on 10th January 1724. 2

Early History of the Pierrot family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Pierrot research. Another 24 words (2 lines of text) covering the years 1608, 1611, 1613, 1628, 1644, 1661, 1670, 1680, 1684, 1687, 1688, 1691, 1703 and 1717 are included under the topic Early Pierrot History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Pierrot Spelling Variations

History has changed the spelling of most surnames. During the early development of the French language in the Middle Ages, a person gave his version of his name, phonetically, to a scribe, a priest, or a recorder. Some variables were adopted by different branches of the family name. Hence, there spelling variations of the name Pierrot, some of which include Perot, Perrot, Perrotte, Perreault, Perault, Perrault, de Perrot, De Perrot, De Perot, De Perault, De Perrault, Perrott, Perrau, Perraut, Perroud, Peroud, Perraud, Perrauld, Perauld, Peraud, Perroux, Peroux and many more.

Early Notables of the Pierrot family

Notable amongst this name at this time was Nicolas Perrot (1644-1717), French explorer, diplomat, and fur trader, one of the first white men in the Upper Mississippi Valley; François-Marie Perrot (1644-1691), French Governor of Montreal by a royal commission in 1670, and later Governor of Acadia (1684-1687); Nicolas Perot (ca. 1611-1661), French Jansenist and historian; and his brothers, Claude Perrault (1613-1688), French architect...
Another 62 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Pierrot Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Pierrot Ranking

In France, the name Pierrot is the 1,334^th most popular surname with an estimated 4,252 people with that name. 3

Pierrot migration to the United States +

In 1643, 109 years after the first landings by Cartier, there were only about 300 people in Quebec, in 1663 there were only 500, 2,000 migrants arrived during the next decade. Early marriage was desperately encouraged amongst the immigrants. Youths of 18 took fourteen-year-old girls for their wives. The fur trade was developed and attracted migrants, both noble and commoner from France. 15,000 explorers left Montreal in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Migration from France to New France or Quebec as it was now more popularly called, continued from France until it fell in 1759. By 1675, there were 7000 French in Quebec. By the same year the Acadian presence in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island had reached 500. In 1755, 10,000 French Acadians refused to take an oath of allegiance to England and were deported to Louisiana. Meanwhile, in Quebec, the French race flourished, founding in Lower Canada, one of the two great solitudes which became Canada. Many distinguished contributions have been made by members of this family name Pierrot. It has been prominent in the arts, religion, politics and culture in France and New France. Amongst the settlers in North America with this distinguished name Pierrot were

Pierrot Settlers in United States in the 19th Century

Cath Pierrot, aged 27, who landed in New York in 1854 4
Nicola Pierrot, aged 25, who arrived in New York in 1854 4

Citations +

Seary E.R., Family Names of the Island of Newfoundland Montreal: McGill's-Queen's University Press 1998. Print. (ISBN 0-7735-1782-0)
Olivier, Reginald L. Your Ancient Canadian Family Ties. Logan: The Everton Publishers, Inc., P.O. Box 368, 1972. Print
http://www.journaldesfemmes.com/nom-de-famille/nom/
Filby, P. William, Meyer, Mary K., Passenger and immigration lists index : a guide to published arrival records of about 500,000 passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 1982-1985 Cumulated Supplements in Four Volumes Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985, Print (ISBN 0-8103-1795-8)