Pearls are organic gemstones formed within the soft tissue of living shelled molluscs such as mussels and oysters.
The name pearl comes from the Latin “perna”, meaning leg, thought to be due to the ham-leg shape of the bivalve mollusc. It is also noteworthy that the scientific name for the family of pear-bearing oysters is Margaritiferidae which comes from the Old Persian word for pearl, which, in turn, is the source of the English name Margaret.