Peter

9,240 people in the United States were counted with the surname Peter in the 2020 census, making it the 3,738th most common in the country. That is about one person in 32,300.

By the numbers

People: 9,240
Rank: 3,738th
How common: 1 in 32,300
Per 100,000: 3.1

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

From Middle English Peter, from Old English Petrus, from Latin Petrus, from Ancient Greek Πέτρος, from πέτρος (“stone, rock”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Peter described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 61.7%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 17.6%
Black, not Hispanic 10.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 3.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.1%

Notable people called Peter

Rózsa Péter (1905–1977)Hungarian mathematician
Peter, 1st Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Ludwigsburg (1769–1843)Russian army officer in the Napoleonic wars
Zoltán Péter (born 1958)Hungarian footballer
Bence Péter (born 1991)Hungarian pianist
Gábor Péter (1906–1993)Hungarian communist politician

People named Peter with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Peter

Also a first name

Peter has been given to 591,531 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1957. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.