Peter (given name)

Peter is a popular male given name.

Meaning

Peter comes from the Greek word πέτρα (read petra, in Latin used as petro-), meaning rock.

According to the New Testament, Jesus gave the Apostle Peter (whose given name was Simon) the nickname Rock (Kephas or Cephas in Aramaic; Petros or "bedros" (Greek) from which we get "bedrock"). The name was transliterated into Latin as Petrus, from which the English form Peter derives.

Saint Peter, according to Catholic tradition, became the first bishop of Rome; Roman Catholics consider him to have been the first Pope and all subsequent Popes to have been his successors, and therefore sometimes refer to the Pope or the Papacy itself as Peter.

In other languages

The following names can be interpreted as Peter in English:

• Albanian: Pjetër
• Arabic: Boutros
• Belarusian: Piotra (Пётра) and Piatro (Пятро)
• Catalan: Pere
• Croatian: Petar
• Czech: Petr
• Danish: Peter
• Dutch: Peter, Pieter, Piet
• Estonian: Peeter
• Finnish: Pietari, Pekka, Petri, Petteri
• French: Pierre (Note: True to the Greek, the word for stone in French is also "pierre")
• German: Peter (Note: The form "Peer" also occurs, albeit less commonly)
• Greek: Πέτρος (Petros)
• Hungarian: Péter
• Icelandic: Pétur
• Italian: Pietro
• Latin: Petrus
• Latvian: Pēteris
• Maltese: Pietru
• Polish: Piotr
• Portuguese: Pedro
• Romanian: Petru
• Russian: Пётр (Pjotr)
• Scandinavian languages: Per, Peer (archaic), Peder, Petter, Peter
• Serbo-Croatian: Петар (Petar)
• Spanish: Pedro
• Ukrainian: Петро (Petro)
• Hindi: Pathar

Disambiguation

People and things named Peter include:

• Christ's disciple, Peter
• Two modern (and still-living) antipopes (Antipope Peter II)
• Peter the Great, the first Emperor of the Russian Empire
• Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow
• Peter Rabbit, the famous Beatrix Potter children's character
• Peter (ピーター), a Japanese transvestite and actor who has appeared in Akira Kurosawa's Ran (among other films).
• Peter, the blond caveman from the comic strip B.C.
• Peter Griffin, the title character of the animated TV series Family Guy.
• Blue Peter is a long-running children's TV programme in the United Kingdom, named after a flag.
• Peter Pevensie is one of the main characters in C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia
• Peter and the Wolf is a musical story by Sergei Prokofiev written in 1933
• Peter is a principal character in Sheri S. Tepper's True Game novels.
• "Peter" is a sexual slang term meaning "penis."