Peder
Masculine · “rock”
Peder is the Danish and Norwegian form of Peter, and the difference between the two spellings is a sound change that happened to the whole language rather than to this name in particular. It is also the name of the painter who taught the world what a Danish summer evening looks like.
How old is the name Peder?
Peder first appears in US birth records in 1894 — 131 years ago. The typical Peder alive today was born around 1968, making them about 57 years old. About 600 people named Peder are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Peder most popular?
Peder peaked in 1894, reaching #1074 nationally. See the whole 1894 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Petros to Peder
The story of Peder
Danish did something systematic to its consonants: a p, t or k standing between vowels went soft, so that t became d and the word came out gentler than it went in. It is why Danish has gade for a street where Swedish has gata, and bide for bite, and Peder for Peter. Nothing was decided about the name; the language simply moved underneath it. At the northern tip of Jutland, where two seas meet, a group of painters settled in a fishing village and spent decades painting the long blue light of the summer evenings there. The best known of them was Peder Severin Krøyer, and his pictures of women walking on the beach at dusk are on postcards, biscuit tins and gallery walls across Scandinavia.
Meaning
rock
The Greek petros was not a name before it was given as one, and the reading has never been in doubt. Peder is that name after Danish had finished with it.
How the name formed
- Petros
- Petrus
- Peter
- Peder
Related forms: Peder · Peter · Per · Pekka
Pronouncing Peder
PEH-thur
Two syllables with the stress in front. In Danish the d is a soft sound closer to the th of this than to an English d; Americans will say PEE-der, which is perfectly serviceable.
Nicknames for Peder
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1894
- Most boys named
- 197919 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1074reached in 1894
- Change vs 2005
- 0.0%5 in 2017, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Peder in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Peder in Danish — same name
- Peter in Swedish — same name
- Per in Norwegian — related form
- Pekka in Finnish — related form
Peders among us
people named Peder are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Peder sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The name behind it is known everywhere in the Christian world, so it needs no explaining.
- Per and Pete are both available as short forms, one for home and one for everywhere else.
- The meaning is settled, short and concrete: a rock.
- Americans will read it as Peter with a typing slip and correct it accordingly.
- The Danish pronunciation is not reachable from the English spelling, so the name is effectively said two different ways in two different rooms.
- It is rare enough in the United States that it will be spelled aloud often.
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Peder
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Peders are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Peder are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Peder in 2025?
- Peder is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Peder with classmates?
- Peder will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More P names
The most-given names starting with P, all years combined.
Paul#262 · Patrick#235 · Peter#187 · Philip#527 · Phillip#651 · Parker#102 · Preston#299 · Pedro#455
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Peder? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Peder and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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