Peter
Meaning of Peter
Peter bursts onto the scene like a trusty stone skipped across a sparkling Mediterranean bay—no surprise, since his roots trace back to the Greek “Petros,” meaning “rock,” the very nickname Jesus gave the steadfast apostle who became Saint Peter. Over two millennia later, the name still carries that solid-as-granite aura, whether it’s pronounced PAY-ter in Munich beer gardens, PAY-tuhr along Dutch canals, PEE-ter in English-speaking playgrounds, or the lyrical PYO-tyer echoing through a Russian winter. Storybooks keep Peter forever young and spry—think Pan soaring over Neverland, Rabbit sneaking through Mr. McGregor’s garden, and Parker slinging webs across New York—while Latin cousins like Pedro and Pietro lend the name a hot-blooded, fiesta-ready twist. In American nurseries Peter has eased from chart-topping fame in the ’50s to a comfortable “classic-but-not-common” seat around the mid-200s today, proving that, like an old mariachi tune, it never really goes out of style; it just waits for fresh ears (and tiny toes) to rediscover its steady heartbeat.
Pronunciation
German
- Pronunced as PAY-ter (/ˈpeɪtɐ/)
Dutch
- Pronunced as PAY-tuhr (/'pɛi̯.tər/)
American English
- Pronunced as PEE-ter (/ˈpi.tər/)
British English
- Pronunced as PEE-tuh (/ˈpi.tə/)
Russian
- Pronunced as PYO-tyer (/'pʲɵ.tʲɪr/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Peter
| Peter Gary Tatchell is an Australian born British human rights activist known for championing LGBTQ equality. |
| Peter Gabriel is an English singer songwriter and human rights activist who rose to fame as the original frontman of Genesis, then achieved solo stardom with Solsbury Hill and the hit album So, whose single Sledgehammer set MTV records. |
| Peter Thiel is a German American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who cofounded PayPal, Palantir, and Founders Fund, was the first outside investor in Facebook, and in 2025 Forbes ranked him the 103rd richest with about 20.8 billion dollars. |
| Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher and emeritus Princeton bioethics professor known for utilitarian applied ethics, Animal Liberation and Famine, Affluence, and Morality, and for shifting from preference to hedonistic utilitarianism in 2014. |
| Peter I, known as Peter the Great, ruled Russia from 1682 to 1725, first jointly with Ivan V, then as an absolute monarch and from 1721 as its first Emperor. |
| Sir Peter Jackson is a New Zealand filmmaker best known for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies based on novels by J R R Tolkien. |
| Peter Dinklage is an American actor best known for playing Tyrion Lannister on the HBO series Game of Thrones, a role that earned him four Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. |
| American actor Peter Falk, famed as Lieutenant Columbo, won four Emmys and a Golden Globe, ranked 21 on the TV Guide list of 50 greatest TV stars, and received a posthumous Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2013. |
| Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish Baroque painter and diplomat whose dynamic, colorful, and sensual religious and mythological works shaped European art. |
| Peter Bogdanovich was an American director and film historian who rose from acting and criticism to become a leading New Hollywood filmmaker, earning a BAFTA and a Grammy plus Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. |
| Peter Seamus O'Toole was a celebrated English stage and screen actor honored with an Academy Honorary Award, a BAFTA, an Emmy, and four Golden Globes, plus Grammy and Olivier nominations. |
| Peter Hitchens is an English conservative author and commentator for The Mail on Sunday, a former foreign correspondent in Moscow and Washington, and the author of books including The Abolition of Britain and The Rage Against God. |
| Peter Schmeichel is a Danish former goalkeeper who starred for Manchester United, captained the 1999 Champions League win, won Euro 1992 with Denmark, and is widely hailed as one of the greatest goalkeepers. |
| John Peter Sarsgaard is an American actor trained at the Actors Studio, known for playing atypical and often villainous roles in film and television. |
| Peter Davison is an English actor who gained fame as Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small and later played the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who from 1981 to 1984. |
