Name Awesome

Per

Boys' name

Form of Peter

Per has been given to 369 babies in the U.S. since 1923. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1963, with 14 recorded.

Babies named Per, 2020

1 in 668,000

Per over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Per: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Peter

Latin

What Per means

Per is a form of Peter.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Per is used in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Breton.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈpæːr/, /ˈpæːɾ/ and /ˈpeɐ̯/ for Per.

Meaning behind the documented name family

Per is a form of Peter. Peter has more than one origin or interpretation.

Origin, language, and formation

Per is used in Breton, Danish, Faroese, German, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish. Its origins include Latin.

Per comes through Latin Petrus.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Peter.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Danish, Per is pronounced /per/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 369 boys were recorded with the name Per between 1923 and 2020. Its highest annual count was 14 in 1963; its best national rank was #2,188 in 1966.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Per?

Per had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2020, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2020
1 in 668,000
5 of 3,342,313 births
Among boys only
1 in 345,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2020
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
463,344 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Per sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2020 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 463,344 children born in 2020 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Per. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Pers were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Per was born before 1971 — so the typical Per is around 54 today.

Median birth year
1971
About 54 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
30.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
13.3%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
358
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 30.1% of all recorded uses (111).

Is Per rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1963 (14)
Years since peak
62
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
33.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,188
1966

Per around the world

Where Per ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #141
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1959–1959
    #464
    in 1959

Popularity data from Statistics Norway and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Per by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,188
1966
Peak year
1963
14 that year
First recorded
1923
Last recorded
2020
All-time count
369
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Per

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

PerezPeretzRoperPerlJazperPerrionCopperPerrinJesperPerriPerlePerrisPerseusPervisChipperPerleyPiperKacperJuniperHooperPeregrineKipperKasperProsper

Sibling names for Per

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Per

Top names of 1963, Per's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1966Boys' names starting with PBreton NamesPeter Variations & NicknamesUncommon Norwegian Boy NamesUncommon Swedish Boy Names