Name Awesome

Petter

Boys' name

Stone, rock, through Peter

Petter has been given to 60 babies in the U.S. since 1918. 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 1918, with 7 recorded.

Babies named Petter, 2020

1 in 668,000

Petter over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0246818801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Petter: meaning, origin, and history

Stone, rock, through Peter

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Petter means

Petter belongs to the name family reached through Petter → Peter. Its meaning is “stone, rock”.

Origin, language, and formation

Petter is used in Norwegian and Swedish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Peter.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 60 boys were recorded with the name Petter between 1918 and 2020. Its highest annual count was 7 in 1918; its best national rank was #3,623 in 1918.

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 Petter?

Petter 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 Petter 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 Petter. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Petters were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Petter was born before 1991 — so the typical Petter is around 34 today.

Median birth year
1991
About 34 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
28.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
36.7%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
43
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 28.3% of all recorded uses (17).

Is Petter 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 1918 (7)
Years since peak
107
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Very steady
0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#3,623
1918

Spellings of Petter

Petter is not the most common spelling — Peter is, with 70.9% against Petter's <0.01%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Petter around the world

Where Petter 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.

  • France
    1999–2021
    #6,045
    in 2021
  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #143
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1958–1982
    #424
    in 1982

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Petter 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
#3,623
1918
Peak year
1918
7 that year
First recorded
1918
Last recorded
2020
All-time count
60
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Petter

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

HolterAlysterPetraDaxterRichterPetiePetrosMinterEasterJesterTrotterRoosterLasterCotterWynterAlasterPeteyWisterPetroNesterForesterPetarGunterCaster

Sibling names for Petter

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 Petter

Top names of 1918, Petter's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1918Boys' names starting with PPeter Variations & Nicknames