Peters

surname · English · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Peters is a surname, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Guyana it is the 8th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a surname transferred from the given name common in northern Germany.

rarermore common
  • GYGuyana1 in 225◐
  • NLNetherlands1 in 574
  • DEGermany1 in 1.1K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈185K ●

across 16 countries

#723 ●

of 21M surnames

Sources
501 ●

1.5M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 121 ◐

St. Vincent & Grenadines

Meaning & origin●

a surname transferred from the given name common in northern Germany

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Peters is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#176137,5131.2M rec.1 in 2.4K138KPeters501
DE Germany#44101,23293K rec.—listedPeters233
GB United Kingdom#20486,37676K rec.——Peters220
AU Australia#16741,46639K rec.——Peters207
CA Canada#9639,62638K rec.——Peters199
NL Netherlands#1730,10616K rec.1 in 57430KPeters139
NG Nigeria#6637,6639.5K rec.——Peters100
IT Italy#2347,2697.5K rec.——Peters46
ZA South Africa#3956,5596.8K rec.——Peters106
BR Brazil—4,566△31 rec.1 in 46K4.6K—5
NZ New Zealand#1034,2713.9K rec.——Peters100
BE Belgium#1803,5432.7K rec.1 in 3.3K3.5KPeters103

Roughly 138K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 2.4K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English1.4M74%
  • German148K8%
  • Spanish66K3%
  • 39K2%
  • Western Frisian30K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English1,410,03174%
German148,4818%
Spanish66,1733%
39,2372%
Western Frisian30,1062%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

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

  • Spanish surname127K records spelled Peters13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, France, Mexico, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese

    Also written Péters, Pētērs, Peter'S, Pèťèřs, Pēters

  • a separate surname45K records spelled Peters5 spellings in the group

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

    Also written Peter-S, Péters, Pēters

  • Russian surname10K records spelled Peters28 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Poland, United States, Kazakhstan

    Languages: Russian, Polish, Ukrainian

    Also written Петерс, Питерс, Peeters, Пітерс, Пеетерс

  • Swahili surname8.8K records spelled Peters3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Nigeria, South Africa, United Kingdom

    Also written Peter'S

  • Danish surname6.4K records spelled Peters7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, United States, Norway, Netherlands

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian

    Also written Péters

  • Hungarian surname3.7K records spelled Peters7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hungary, United States, Finland, Netherlands

    Languages: Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Péters, Péter'S, Peter'S

  • Greek surname3.3K records spelled Peters2 spellings in the group

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

    Also written Πιτερς

80 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●

Peters 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 German, Patronymische Bildung mit Genitiv-/Besitz-S: 'Sohn des Peter'; morphologische Kurzform. Belegt: 31.210 Träger.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, Sehr häufiges Patronym auf starkem Genitiv -s zu Peter; ‚Sohn des Peter‘. Morphologisch: genitivisches Patronym auf -ers.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In English, ‘Son of Peter’.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • In German, Patronym aus Rufname Peter/Petrus; Typ mit starkem Genitiv -s. Bearer count: 31210. Morphologisches Muster: -s neben -sen und Ø.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, Surname; frequent element in double surnames; bearer count 238.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

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.

Over time●

010020030019001920194019601980242 · 1971

Show as table
Peters in INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000), France, 1891–1991
Yearrecords
189181
1901118
1911106
1921119
1931104
1941158
1951224
1961232
1971242
1981220
1991200

FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 11 years between 1891–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

190019502000John Peters Humphrey, b. 1905Svetlana Alliluyeva, b. 1926Jean Peters, b. 1926Brock Peters, b. 1927Jon Peters, b. 1945Bernadette Peters, b. 1948Clarke Peters, b. 1952Gary Peters, b. 1958Russell Peters, b. 1970Evan Peters, b. 1987

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●

Attested in 65 sources across 41 countries.

Official registers attesting Peters
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010138K#205
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000134K#190
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020132K#215
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)200730K#10
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—4.6K#2,409
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)20083.5K#215
BE BelgiumStatbel — Noms de famille (family names)—3.4K#220
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 202520253.3K#14
VC St. Vincent & GrenadinesElectoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025)2025835#15
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—817#1,217
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—769—
GD GrenadaGrenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 20252025692#17

Reference works 4

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname 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 2026-09-12 data build · 177 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Peters?
We estimate roughly 185 thousand people bear Peters (counting its spellings and scripts) across 16 countries in our records.
In which country does Peters have the most bearers?
We estimate about 138 thousand people bear Peters in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled peters.
Where is Peters most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Peters is densest in St. Vincent & Grenadines — about 1 in 121 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is Peters compared with other names?
In the United States, Peters is the 176th most common surname of 7,257,200 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Peters mean?
Recorded meaning: a surname transferred from the given name common in northern Germany
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/peters

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Peters” — the 176th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Peters parses inside a full name →