Petrus

given name · Latin script

Meaning: Latinized patronymic with nominative -us; from gr

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

Petrus is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country, where it is the 18th most common given name.

rarermore common
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 565(inferred from the name graph)
  • NLNetherlands≈1 in 6.1K
  • NANamibia≈1 in 336

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.

South Africa (inferred from the name graph)

≈100,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
249 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 336 (inferred from the name graph)

Namibia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

PetrusLatin(measured from records)
เพชรสมThai(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Latinized patronymic with nominative -us; from gr. Pétros < pétra ‘rock’. Bearer counts: Peter 15050, Petrus 109.

Sources 1

  • Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Petrus 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 Petrus is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ZA South Africa#18≈100,000 est.≈1 in 565—Petrus67
NA Namibia#59≈7,800 est.≈1 in 33648Petrus20
NL Netherlands#340≈2,800 est.≈1 in 6.1K82KPetrus100
SE Sweden—1,8071 in 5.6K1.8KPetrus28
BR Brazil—1,4671 in 144K1.5K—5
FI Finland—1,3401 in 4.2K1.6KPetrus14

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: Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); ECN Government Gazette 8791 — 2025 local authority candidates. 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)

Petrus is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Indonesian given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, India

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written 'Petrus

  • Portuguese given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, South Africa, Spain, United States

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Petruş, Pétrus, Pêtrús, Petrús, Petruș

  • Swahili given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in South Africa, Malaysia, Nigeria, Namibia

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho

    Also written Petruș

  • Polish given name9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Slovakia, Poland, Czechia, South Africa

    Languages: Polish, Slovak, Czech

    Also written Petruš, Petruś, Petruş

  • Finnish given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, South Africa, Sweden, Netherlands

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Petruš

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Petruș, Petruš, Petruş, Pétrus

  • a separate given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Netherlands, United States, Sweden

    Also written Pétrus

69 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)

Petrus is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Latin, Greek Petros 'rock'; source of names like Petzoldt via Slavic short forms

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • In German, Greek 'rock'; translation of Hebrew Kephas

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • In German, Latinized surname form from Peter; borne by 109. Morphological transposition / learned Latinization.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In Dutch, Simon Peter, Cephas (Biblical character, early Christian leader)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In French, Forme latine de Pierre, du latin Petrus « rocher »; fête de la Saint-Pierre.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

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)

1000120014001600180020002200Peter Damian, b. 1007Petrus Christus, b. 1410Petrus Plancius, b. 1552Victor Horta, b. 1861Peter Debye, b. 1884Piet de Jong, b. 1915Pim Fortuyn, b. 1948Davy Pröpper, b. 1991Vincent Janssen, b. 1994Robin Roefs, b. 2003
  • Peter Damianb. 1007ITnot in their usual nameeleventh-century Benedictine monk
  • Petrus Christusb. 1410BEFlemish painter (c.1410-1475)
  • Petrus Planciusb. 1552BEDutch-Flemish astronomer, cartographer and clergyman
  • Victor Hortab. 1861BEnot in their usual nameBelgian architect, designer, publicist, teacher and creator of Art Nouveau (1861–1947)
  • Peter Debyeb. 1884NLnot in their usual nameDutch-American physicist and physical chemist (1884–1966)
  • Piet de Jongb. 1915NLnot in their usual nameprime minister of the Netherlands (1915–2016)
  • Pim Fortuynb. 1948NLnot in their usual nameDutch politician (1948–2002)
  • Davy Pröpperb. 1991NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football player
  • Vincent Janssenb. 1994NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football player (born 1994)
  • Robin Roefsb. 2003NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football player (born 2003)

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 75 sources across 37 countries.

Official registers attesting Petrus
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
NA NamibiaECN Government Gazette 8791 — 2025 local authority candidates20256#10

Reference works 6

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 Petrus come from?
Latinized patronymic with nominative -us; from gr. Pétros < pétra ‘rock’. Bearer counts: Peter 15050, Petrus 109. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen.
In which country does Petrus have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 100 thousand people named Petrus in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled petrus.
What does the name Petrus mean?
Recorded meaning: Latinized patronymic with nominative -us; from gr.
What are other forms of the name Petrus?
In the etymology graph, Peter, Pedro and Pierre are forms of the same name in other languages; Piet is a recorded short or pet form.
Is Petrus a male or female name?
Petrus is a male 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 common is the name Petrus?
In Sweden, the national register counted 1,807 people named Petrus, about 1 in 5.6 thousand residents.
How common is Petrus compared with other names?
In South Africa, Petrus is the 18th most common given name of 189,620 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Petrus?

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

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, “Petrus” — the 18th most common given name in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Petrus parses inside a full name →