Pearce can trace its origin back to the medieval first name Pers or Peris, a form of the Old French Pierre, which was itself derived from Peter. As the name that Jesus gave to one of his disciples, it’s not surprising to find Peris/Pers widely adopted as a surname in most parts of Cornwall by the 1500s.
With such a foundation the surname embedded itself in most parts, its 669 households in 1861 making it one of Cornwall’s more numerous surnames. Meanwhile, its geography neatly mirrored the demographic picture more generally, with hotspots at Hayle, Camborne-Redruth, near Truro and at St Austell.
At first in Cornwall usually spelt Peris or Pers, the spelling had settled down by the seventeenth century to Pearse, Pearce or similar. By the eighteenth century, Pearce had become the preferred spelling, outnumbering Pearse by three to one. That advantage had widened further by 1861 when around nine in ten (88 per cent) had their surname spelt Pearce.
Cornish studies resources 