The term broadened to mean "wandering" or "travelling" from the habits of young peregrine falcons (falco peregrinus, meaning "pilgrim falcon" in Medieval Latin), which would travel long distances to find a suitable nesting place in a high place.
[1] The peregrine falcon was first named thus by English ornithologist Marmaduke Tunstall in 1771.
Some French Huguenots who had moved to England by the 18th century bore the surname "Pelegrin".
[4] The first records of the surname Peregrine in England are from Norfolk in the 13th century, where these Norman descendants held vast estates.
[2] In the United States, Peregrine was the name chosen for the first English child born on Mayflower when it arrived in Provincetown.