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Shem Tov · Hebrew names

Boy's nameOrigin: internationalIn Israel: hardly given today

PeterIn Hebrew: פטר · meaning, pronunciation and popularity in Israel

With vowel points: פֶּטֶרRomanization: péter

Peter (Hebrew: פטר) is a boy's name of international origin. 760 people born in Israel between 1949 and 2024 have it today, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Its peak year was 1949, with 50 babies.

People in Israel
760
born 1949–2024
Babies in 2024
—
not in the list
Peak year
1949
50 babies
USA, 2025
1,954
rank #187

Writing and saying Peter

In Hebrew letters the name is פטר, read right to left. Peter is the Latin spelling recorded in Wiktionary; families choose their own spelling in passports, so you may also meet other forms. Wiktionary romanizes it as "péter" (the accent marks the stressed syllable).

Meaning and origin

  • a male given name, equivalent to English Peter

Quoted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), unchanged.

Peter by year: Israel and abroad

How many boys out of every 10,000 born each year have the name. For Israel it counts the people born that year who carry the name today (the CBS counts residents by year of birth, not birth registrations).

Peter: rate per 10,000, 1950–2025

per 10,000 babies of the same sex

Peter in English-speaking countries

Peter in each official list: latest year, count, rank and peak
Country / regionYearBabiesRankPeak
United States20251,954#1871957 (11,603)
United Kingdom2025184#2791997 (1,293)
England and Wales2025158#2871996 (1,128)
Scotland202511#3161979 (395)
Northern Ireland202515#1491998 (138)
Ireland202534#1471966 (601)
British Columbia202316#2181957 (299)
Alberta202527#1741984 (111)
Quebec20258#5121984 (47)

Counts for boys. The Hebrew page for Peter has every year and the other spellings.

Related Israeli names

Spelling variants and names that look or sound close in Hebrew.

Questions about Peter

How do you write Peter in Hebrew?

Peter is written פטר in Hebrew (with vowel points: פֶּטֶר). Hebrew is read right to left. A dictionary romanization is "péter".

How many people in Israel are named Peter?

760 people born between 1949 and 2024 carry the name פטר: 0 women and 760 men. The count comes from the CBS table of current first names by year of birth; years with fewer than 5 people are not published.

Is Peter a boy's or a girl's name?

In Israel it is almost always a boy's name: 100.0% of the people named פטר are men.

What does the name Peter mean?

English Wiktionary describes it as: "a male given name, equivalent to English Peter"

Is Peter used outside Israel?

The name Peter appears in the official baby name lists of English-speaking countries. In the United States 1,954 boys were given it in 2025 (#187), per the Social Security Administration. In the UK 184 in 2025 (ONS, NRS and NISRA combined).

Sources

Israel: Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), current first names of people born 1949–2024 by sex, population group and year of birth, processed 2026-09-27. CBS publications.

Abroad

Counts are copied as published. We only merged accented spellings (Zoë = Zoe) and computed ranks and rates. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia and the Open Government Licence – Alberta.