The meteors are called the Perseids because they appear from the general direction of the constellation Perseus and in more modern times have a radiant bordering on Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis.

[9] As with many meteor showers the visible rate is greatest in the pre-dawn hours, since more meteoroids are scooped up by the side of the Earth moving forward into the stream, corresponding to local times between midnight and noon, as can be seen in the accompanying diagram.

His manner of death is almost certainly the origin of the Mediterranean folk legend claiming that the shooting stars are the sparks of Saint Lawrence's martyrdom.

"[37][38] The transition in favor of the Catholic saint and his feast day on August 10, moving away from pagan gods and their festivals — a process known as Christianization — was facilitated by the phonetic assonance of the Latin name Laurentius with Acca Larentia,[39] a goddess previously celebrated during the summer period alongside Priapus, as a fertility deity.

[43] In 1866, after the perihelion passage of Swift-Tuttle in 1862, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli discovered the link between meteor showers and comets.

In his 2006 novel Against the Day, American novelist Thomas Pynchon refers to the Perseid meteor shower being watched by three characters west of the Dolores Valley after playing a game of tarot.