Pieter

Spellings & scripts●

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

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

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◐

Pieter is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• French given name16K records spelled Pieter5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in South Africa, France, Netherlands, Belgium

  Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

  Also written Pịëţễř

• German given name8.2K records spelled Pieter3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Germany, South Africa, Netherlands, Belgium

  Also written Piëter, Piéter

53 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●

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

  as a word·kaikki.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●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 84 years between 1935–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Pieter Aertsenb. 1508NLpainter from the Northern Netherlands (1508-1575)
• Pieter Brueghel the Elderb. 1525NLFlemish painter (1526–1569)
• Pieter Brueghel der Jüngereb. 1564BEFlemish painter (1564–1638)
• Pieter Claeszb. 1596BEFlemish-Dutch painter (c.1596–1660)
• Pieter van Laerb. 1599NLDutch painter and engraver (1599-1642)
• Pieter de Hoochb. 1629NLDutch Golden Age painter (1629-1684)
• Pieter Zeemanb. 1865NLDutch physicist (1865–1943)
• Piet Mondrianb. 1872NLnot in their usual nameDutch painter (1872–1944)
• Pieter Willem Bothab. 1916ZASouth African prime minister (1916–2006)
• Pieter van den Hoogenbandb. 1978NLDutch swimmer

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 243 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Pieter?

We estimate roughly 165 thousand people bear Pieter (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.

In which country does Pieter have the most bearers?

We estimate about 162 thousand people bear Pieter in the Netherlands, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled pieter.

Where is Pieter most common?

Pieter is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 106 people carrying it.

How common is Pieter compared with other names?

In the Netherlands, Pieter is the 24th most common given name of 134,847 given names recorded there.

Is Pieter a male or female name?

Pieter 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 Pieter mean?

Recorded meaning: männl. Vom., niederdeutsche und niederländische Form von