Entry № 7991 · Latin origin

Patience Patience — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ PAY-shens /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Latin
Meaning
"Forbearance (Puritan virtue name)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Medieval (English)

A name that means "forbearance (puritan virtue name)".

Patience is from the Latin patientia ("endurance, forbearance") — a Christian theological virtue. A characteristic Puritan virtue name introduced in 17th-century England and brought to colonial New England by the Pilgrims — alongside Charity, Mercy, Honor, Verity, and Constance. Patience Worth — the alleged "spirit" that the St. Louis housewife Pearl Curran said dictated novels and poems to her via Ouija board from 1913 to 1937, producing approximately 4,000 poems and 7 novels. Saint Patience of Cardiff — early Welsh Christian martyr.

Featured in countless 17th-century New England town records as one of the most popular Puritan feminine names.

Forbearance. Puritan virtue brought to New England by the Pilgrims.

The name in its native script.

Patience
Transliteration
Patience
Pronunciation
/ ˈpeɪ.ʃəns /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Patience stands.

Patience does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Patiences before her.

Real people
Patience Worth
Alleged spirit-dictator of Pearl Curran.
1913 – 1937
In fiction
Patience
The Mayflower Compact.
1620

Names connected to Patience.

The number behind Patience.

1

The Leader

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Patience reduce to 1, The Leader. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.