Perpetua
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Portuguese: feminine singular of perpetuo
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/peɾpɛtuɐ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Perpetua is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 585K(measured from records)
- BRBrazil1 in 57K
- GYGuyana1 in 107K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- Sources
- 144 (measured from records)
- 1 in 57K (inferred from the name graph)
3,744 people, 2022
Highest-authority source
Brazil
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Latin perpetua 'continuous, enduring'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
How Perpetua is read(measured from records)
Perpetua is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Portuguese41%
feminine singular of perpetuo
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish30%
globe amaranth
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English18%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Perpetua in English.
- Swahili6.0%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Perpetua in Swahili.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Perpetua counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | 3,744 | 1 in 57K | 5.2K | — | 2 |
| US United States | 569 | 1 in 585K | 564 | Perpetua | 144 |
| ES Spain | 367 | 1 in 136K | 432 | — | 5 |
| NL Netherlands | 156 | 1 in 111K | 156 | — | 5 |
| SE Sweden | 23 | 1 in 444K | 23 | — | 5 |
| UY Uruguay | 22 | 1 in 154K | 22 | — | — |
| GY Guyana | 7 | 1 in 107K | 7 | — | 2 |
3,744 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Perpetua is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, from Latin perpetua 'continuous, enduring'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Italian, Dal latino perpetua, 'perpetua, duratura'; nome di santa martire del III secolo.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Italian, Etimologia evid.ente. Santa martire, secolo 111, 7 marzo. Se il Manzoni scelse questo nome per la fedele serva-padrona di Don Abbondio, è probabile ehe al suo tempo noi, fosse disusato in Lombardia. Neseuii cognome.
as a nameNomi e Cognomi: Saggio di ricerche etimologiche e storiche
In Swedish, Se Tua.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Perpetuab. 1IT1st century Christian woman martyr
- Perpetua Hong Kŭm-jub. 1804KRKorean martyr, catholic saint
- Emma Schensonb. 1827SEnot in their usual nameSwedish photographer and painter (1827–1913)
- Perpetua Saraguetab. 1905ESSpanish writer
- Perpetua Popeb. 1916GBBritish painter (1916-2013)
- Evelyn Owensb. 1931IEnot in their usual namePolitician, member of the Seanad Éireann (1931-2010)
- Lady Clare Asquithb. 1955GBnot in their usual name(born 1955)
- Pauline Quirkeb. 1959GBnot in their usual nameEnglish retired actress (born 1959)
- Perpetua Nkwochab. 1976NGNigerian association football player
- Perpetua DadzieGHGhanaian librarian
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 50 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 5.2K | #3,313 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 5.1K | #1,458 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 3.7K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2010 | 3.7K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 3.7K | #3,347 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2000 | 3.7K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 1990 | 3.6K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 1980 | 3.3K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 564 | #18,816 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 432 | #2,360 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 367 | #5,680 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 156 | #4,209 |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Perpetua come from?
- from Latin perpetua 'continuous, enduring' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What does the name Perpetua mean?
- In Portuguese, feminine singular of perpetuo
- Is Perpetua a male or female name?
- Perpetua is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How do you pronounce Perpetua?
- A machine transcription gives /peɾpɛtuɐ/ (IPA) for Portuguese.
- In which country does Perpetua have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 3.7 thousand people named Perpetua, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Perpetua most common?
- Perpetua is densest in Brazil, where the national register counts about 1 in 57 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Perpetua?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 3,744 people named Perpetua in 2022, about 1 in 57 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Perpetua?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/perpetuaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Perpetua”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.