Piotr
Still the second most-given boy's name in Poland, one of those you meet everywhere, though it's given a little less each year now. From the Greek petros: rock, the plain kind you can stand on.
Piotr Pronunciation
Piotr is pronounced PYOTR (/pjɔtr/).
What Piotr means
Where Piotr comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Piotr comes from the Greek Petros, and Petros means rock. The name began as a translation. When Simon the fisherman was given a new name in the Gospels, the Aramaic word kepha, rock, passed into Greek as Petros, and Poland received it centuries later as Piotr. So the short meaning, skała, is not a later gloss. It stands in the origin itself.
In daily speech the name shortens to Piotrek. A teacher reads it down a class register, and the boy answers to the shorter form long before he signs the full one on any official paper. Petronela is the cross-gender relative, drawn from the same Latin stock around Petronius, and it rests on the same rocky ground.
Piotr keeps his name-day on the twenty-ninth of June, shared with Paul. Millions of Polish men carry it, and each summer the imieniny brings a round of wishes. The meaning underneath stays plain: rock, skała, Petros.
How many people are named Piotr
1 in 31 men in Poland is named Piotr. 686,024 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2 among male names.
Piotr's popularity over time
1,146 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #64 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000. Still the #2 name among living men, even as it slips to #64 among newborns.
Where Piotr is most popular
Piotr is most popular in Podlaskie, 46% above the national average (644 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Opole (+20%) and Silesian (+19%). It is least common in Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Pomeranian, 23% and 16% below average respectively.
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Podlaskie644 boys born+46%
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Opole369 boys born+20%
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Silesian1,803 boys born+19%
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Warmian-Masurian563 boys born+17%
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Świętokrzyskie413 boys born+11%
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Lubusz346 boys born+4%
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Lesser Poland1,535 boys born+1%
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Lower Silesian1,050 boys born0%
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Masovian2,346 boys born−1%
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Łódź827 boys born−2%
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Lublin641 boys born−7%
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Greater Poland1,330 boys born−8%
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West Pomeranian496 boys born−12%
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Subcarpathian684 boys born−15%
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Pomeranian831 boys born−16%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian565 boys born−23%
Piotr as a middle name
Piotr is a first name for 686,024 men in Poland and a middle name for another 603,686, a 53/47 split — almost evenly. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 2nd, between Jan (638,387) and Stanisław (447,673).
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1
638,387Jan
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2603,686Piotr
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3
447,673Stanisław
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4
406,153Andrzej
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5
399,071Paweł
When Piotr celebrates name day
Piotr appears 8 times in the Polish name day calendar. The main date is 18 January.