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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : from Middle English parfit ‘fully trained’, ‘well versed’ (Old French parfit(e) ‘complete(d)’, from Latin perfectus, past participle of perficere ‘to finish or accomplish’), hence a nickname, probably originally denoting an apprentice who had completed his period of training. (The change from -er- to -ar- was a characteristic phonetic development in Old French and Middle English.) The modern English word perfect is a learned recoinage from Latin.

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