Nice reference! But I have a couple of minor quibbles:

(1) ...arbitrarily chosen for its positive connotations...

As it stands, this is a bit vague. According to Wikipedia, “Wall wanted to give the language a short name with positive connotations. It is also a Christian reference to the Parable of the Pearl from the Gospel of Matthew.”

Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. He discovered a real bargain—a pearl of great value—and sold everything he owned to purchase it! —Matthew 13:45-46 (Living Bible)

(2) ...to differentiate it from an existing programming language called Pearl.

Ironically (in the context of the current discussion), the existing language was not in fact called “Pearl” but rather “PEARL”, being an explicit acronym of “Process and Experiment Automation Realtime Language”.

:-)