Petrus
The Latinized form of Piotr, from the Greek for "rock" or "stone". It barely registers in Poland now: about 85 men carry it, and no boys were given it last year.
Petrus Pronunciation
Petrus is pronounced PET-roos (/ˈpɛtrus/).
What Petrus means
Where Petrus comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Petrus begins in Greek, in the word petros, meaning rock or stone. Latin took it up and made it a proper name. When Christ renamed the apostle Simon, this word for stone became his name, and the Church carried it across Europe as Petrus.
In Polish the same root settled into Piotr, with Piotrek as the diminutive a boy answers to through school. For centuries the Latin registers of Polish parishes wrote each child as Petrus, even when the priest and parents said Piotr at the font. The Latin form held the official record while the Polish form did the living.
Open an old parish book and you find columns of Petrus, one entry beneath another. The meaning never moved. Through every change of spelling it kept its ground: rock, stone, skała, kamień.
How many people are named Petrus
1 in 251132 men in Poland is named Petrus. 85 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3841 among male names.
Petrus as a middle name
Petrus is a first name for 85 men in Poland and a middle name for another 88, a 49/51 split, almost evenly. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 773rd, between Mordechai (88) and Metody (87).
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#771 Martyn88
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#772 Mordechai88
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#773 Petrus88
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#774 Metody87
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#775 Ali̇86