Pedro
Meaning
rock
Name day: April 2 in the Philippine national calendar (Saint Pedro Calungsod); the Spanish santoral also honors Pedro on June 29.
The story
Pedro is Peter in Spanish and Portuguese, from the Greek petros, rock, the name the fisherman Simon was given. It has been borne by kings of Aragon and Castile, by both emperors of independent Brazil, and by the Church's first Filipino martyr-saint, Pedro Calungsod, a teenage catechist killed in 1672 and canonized in 2012. In the Spanish-speaking world June 29 remains the great Pedro day of the santoral, shared with Saint Paul, as it has been for centuries. The US records tell a story of patience: Pedro has never had a boom decade and never a bad one, a small unbroken presence since the 1890s whose ranking has quietly strengthened over the last half-century. Rock is the right meaning for a curve like that. Some names spike when a movie lands; Pedro just keeps showing up, generation after generation, in whichever language the family prays.
Pedro around the world
One shared root links 6 names across 4 languages.
Shared root: from Greek petros "rock", translating the Aramaic byname Kepha; the European forms descend from Latin Petrus
The constellation
More branches
Pedro in song
Pedro Navaja
Willie Colon y Ruben Blades (1978)
A street tale from the best-selling salsa album ever made, telling the short life of a small-time hustler in a few unforgettable verses.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Pedro peaked in the 1990s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
1,624,478 people · the #7 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 125 · median age 17
Among people named Pedro living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 145,858 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Pedro
Most people given the name Pedro in the United States were born between 1970 and 2009. The Pedro you meet today is most often in his 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Pedro deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Pedro truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Pedro fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Portuguese and Brazilian baby names · Saint names for babies and confirmation · Names of soccer legends
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