Petri

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in German: From Latin genitive Petri; patronymic surname in -i with Germanized variants

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/pʰɛtʲɹi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Petri is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • FIFinland1 in 139K(measured from records)
  • RORomania≈1 in 26K
  • ITItaly≈1 in 26K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Brazil (measured from records)

7,363 people

Sources
146 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 26K (inferred from the name graph)

Romania, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From Latin genitive Petri; patronymic surname in -i with Germanized variants.

Sources 1

  • Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

How Petri is read(measured from records)

Petri 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.

  • English40%

    J. R., German bacteriologist;

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    bacteria culture dish

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • German19%

    From Latin genitive Petri; patronymic surname in -i with Germanized variants.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • Portuguese12%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Petri in Portuguese.

  • Spanish8.1%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Petri in Spanish.

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Petri 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.

Where Petri is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil—7,3631 in 29K7.4K——
US United States—3,1151 in 107K3.1KPetri135
IT Italy—≈2,400 est.≈1 in 26KlistedPetri9
RO Romania—≈830 est.≈1 in 26K—Petri13
FR France—≈670 est.≈1 in 101K84—3
DK Denmark—2181 in 27K218——
AL Albania—≈110 est.≈1 in 28K73——
FI Finland#134401 in 139K41KPetri146

7,363 people counted by IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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: DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Petri is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

    Languages: English, Dutch

    Also written Pétri

  • German surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, United States, Italy, Finland

    Also written Pétri

  • Portuguese surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Finland, United States, Italy

    Also written Pétri, Petrí

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, United States, Finland, Spain

    Also written Pêtri, Petrì

  • Danish surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, United States

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian

    Also written Pétri

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Pétri

58 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Petri is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Swedish, Petri är en finsk form av → Petrus och även latinsk genitiv av samma namn. Petri användes som förnamn under 1800-talet, särskilt i Sydsverige, kanske efter almanackans Petri Cath[edra] och Petri fäng[else]. Se vidare → Per.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

  • In Italian, variante arcaica e regional de Pietri.

    as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

  • In Russian, taken over in Latin genitive form

    as a nameRussian Surnames

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)

1400160018002000Laurentius Petri, b. 1499Julius Richard Petri, b. 1852Egon Petri, b. 1881Carl Adam Petri, b. 1926Elio Petri, b. 1929Hella Petri, b. 1953Michala Petri, b. 1958Nina Petri, b. 1963Franziska Petri, b. 1973Mona Petri, b. 1976

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)

FormalDear Petri,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 57 sources across 30 countries.

Official registers attesting Petri
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—41K#48
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—36K—
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202286—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202080#50,309
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—75#45,833
AL AlbaniaINSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts)—73#3,423
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202040#50,309
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—25#15,473
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—23#4,017
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—4#13,467

Reference works 10

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

What does the name Petri mean, and where does it come from?
From Latin genitive Petri; patronymic surname in -i with Germanized variants. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen.
How do you pronounce Petri?
A machine transcription gives /pʰɛtʲɹi/ (IPA) for English.
What are other forms of the name Petri?
In the etymology graph, Peer, Pero and Petre are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Petri have the most bearers?
In Brazil, the national register counted about 7.4 thousand people named Petri, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Petri?
In Brazil, the national register counted 7,363 people named Petri, about 1 in 29 thousand residents.
How common is Petri compared with other names?
In Finland, Petri is the 134th most common surname of 94,499 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Petri?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/petri

The 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, “Petri” — the 134th most common surname in Finland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Petri parses inside a full name →