Entry № 8334 · Latin origin

Prudence Prudence — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ PROO-dens /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Latin
Meaning
"Wisdom (cardinal Christian virtue; Puritan name)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Medieval (English)

A name that means "wisdom (cardinal christian virtue; puritan name)".

Prudence is from the Latin prudentia ("foresight, wisdom") — one of the four classical cardinal virtues alongside Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. Saint Prudence of Como (5th c.) was an early Italian martyr.

Wisdom (cardinal Christian virtue; Puritan name) — a Latin name.

The name in its native script.

Prudence
Transliteration
Prudence
Pronunciation
/ ˈpruː.dəns /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Prudence stands.

Prudence 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.

Prudences before her.

Real people
Prudence Crandall
American abolitionist schoolteacher.
1803 – 1890
Prudence Farrow
Subject of the Beatles' Dear Prudence.
born 1948
In fiction
Prudence
The Beatles' Dear Prudence.
1968

Names connected to Prudence.

The number behind Prudence.

5

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Prudence reduce to 5, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.