Petru

given name · Romanian · Latin script

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

Petru is a given name, with more bearers in Moldova than in any other country, where it is the 39th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Romanian and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Peter.

rarermore common
  • MDMoldova1 in 141◐
  • RORomania1 in 2.8K
  • ITItaly1 in 26K

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

≈27K ●

across 12 countries

Sources
149 ●

17K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 141 ◐

Moldova

Meaning & origin●

a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Peter

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Petru is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MD Moldova#3923,843△947 rec.1 in 14124KPetru55
RO Romania#13311,3135.5K rec.——Petru110
IT Italy—1,9662.4K rec.—2Petru71
ES Spain—1,4011.9K rec.1 in 36K1.4KPetru58
GB United Kingdom—844539 rec.—listedPetru70
PL Poland—713—1 in 54K713——
US United States—6564.3K rec.1 in 507K656Petru149
BE Belgium—243217 rec.—3Petru23
SE Sweden—219△22 rec.1 in 47K219—16
TR Türkiye—198257 rec.——Petru6
RU Russia—191183 rec.——Petru40
CA Canada—161171 rec.—5Petru37

Roughly 24K people in Moldova bear this name (about 1 in 141). 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●

  • Romanian46K61%
  • Spanish8K11%
  • French5.4K7%
  • English4.3K6%
  • Polish2.8K4%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Romanian45,61861%
Spanish8,00811%
French5,3677%
English4,2846%
Polish2,8324%

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◐

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

  • Polish given name19K records spelled Petru41 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, Czechia, Romania, Russia

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Croatian

    Also written Petrů, Petrù, Петру, Petrou, Pëtęř

  • English given name11K records spelled Petru11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Germany, Romania, United Kingdom

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Petrue, Petrü, Pétru, Petrů

  • Spanish given name9.7K records spelled Petru8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Romania, Portugal

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Petrú, Petrù, Petrü, Petrů

  • Danish given name801 records spelled Petru7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Norway, Iceland, United States

    Languages: Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Icelandic

    Also written Petrů

  • Finnish given name377 records spelled Petru3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, Romania, Estonia

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Petrü

  • a separate given name365 records spelled Petru4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Romania, India, Moldova

    Also written Petrů, Petrû, Pétru

44 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●

Petru is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Lithuanian, instrumental singular of Pẽtras (“Peter”)

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

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●

05010015020002005201020152020115 · 2019

Show as table
Petru in SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023), Sweden, 1999–2020
Yearrecords
199930
200031
200131
200232
200335
200436
200539
200641
200756
200865
200971
201076
201179
201278
201386
201493
2015100
2016106
2017107
2018111
2019115
2020112

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

16001700180019002000Peter the Great, b. 1672Peter II of Russia, b. 1715Peter III of Russia, b. 1728Pyotr Bagration, b. 1765Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, b. 1840Peter Kropotkin, b. 1842Pyotr Stolypin, b. 1862Pyotr Wrangel, b. 1878Pyotr Kapitsa, b. 1894Peter Svidler, b. 1976
  • Peter the Greatb. 1672RUnot in their usual nameTsar/Emperor of Russia from 1682 to 1725
  • Peter II of Russiab. 1715RUnot in their usual nameEmperor of Russia (1715-1730)
  • Peter III of Russiab. 1728DEnot in their usual nameThe seventh Emperor of Russia (1762)
  • Pyotr Bagrationb. 1765RUnot in their usual nameGeneral of the Imperial Russian Army (1765–1812)
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskyb. 1840RUnot in their usual nameRussian composer (1840–1893)
  • Peter Kropotkinb. 1842RUnot in their usual nameRussian revolutionary socialist and philosopher (1842–1921)
  • Pyotr Stolypinb. 1862DEnot in their usual nameRussian politician (1862–1911)
  • Pyotr Wrangelb. 1878LTnot in their usual nameRussian army general of Baltic German origin (1878-1928)
  • Pyotr Kapitsab. 1894RUnot in their usual nameSoviet physicist
  • Peter Svidlerb. 1976RUnot in their usual nameRussian chess player

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 51 sources across 28 countries.

Official registers attesting Petru
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
MD Moldovae-services.md — living population register—24K#43
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—1.4K#964
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—1.4K#2,260
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20)2026713#577
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020656#16,996
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—644#592
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020399#55,517
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010306#64,891
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000281#65,862
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—219#4,910
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—216#4,534
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—157#3,988

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • 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 · 90 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Petru?
We estimate roughly 27 thousand people bear Petru (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
In which country does Petru have the most bearers?
We estimate about 24 thousand people bear Petru in Moldova, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled petru.
Where is Petru most common?
Petru is densest in Moldova, where the national register counts about 1 in 141 people carrying it.
How common is Petru compared with other names?
In Moldova, Petru is the 39th most common given name of 2,579 given names recorded there.
Is Petru a male or female name?
Petru 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.
What does the name Petru mean?
Recorded meaning: a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Peter
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/petru

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, “Petru” — the 39th most common given name in Moldova. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Petru parses inside a full name →