Pedro
Masculine · “Rock”
Pedro is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 94,083 boys against 499 girls since 1880.
Pedro is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Peter, and behind it stands one of the oldest naming stories in Europe: a nickname meaning "rock" that became a name in its own right. It was carried by kings of Portugal and Castile in the fourteenth century and later by two emperors of Brazil, and it has never needed reviving in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world. Two syllables, five letters, and the same spelling in both languages.
How old is the name Pedro?
Pedro was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Pedro alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 77,500 people named Pedro are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Pedro most popular?
Pedro peaked in 1992, reaching #188 nationally. Today it ranks #455, 267 places below that high. See the whole 1992 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Kepha to Pedro
The story of Pedro
The name begins as a word rather than a name: Greek petros, "stone," used to render the Aramaic kepha in the Gospels, where the apostle Simon is renamed. Latin turned it into Petrus, and from Petrus the Romance languages each took their own road — Pierre in France, Pietro in Italy, Pere in Catalonia, and Pedro in both Spanish and Portuguese. Medieval Iberia used it heavily for royalty and clergy, which fixed it in the naming stock of Portugal, Castile and Aragon, and Portuguese and Spanish settlement carried it across the Atlantic. In the United States it has been on record since the earliest federal name counts, arriving with Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Brazilian and Portuguese families and never disappearing.
Meaning
Rock, stone
Greek Petros translates the Aramaic word for rock, kepha — the name given to the apostle Simon in the New Testament, where it appears in Greek as both Petros and Kephas.
How the name formed
- Kepha
- Petros
- Petrus
- Pedro
Related forms: Peter · Pierre · Pietro · Pere · Pyotr · Kepa
Pronouncing Pedro
PEH-droh
Two syllables, stress on the first. In Spanish and Portuguese the r is a light tap; English speakers usually say PED-roh or PAY-droh, and both are widely accepted.
Nicknames for Pedro
High
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 20011,696 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #188reached in 1992
- Change vs 2022
- −11.7%684 in 2025, from 775
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.
Pedro in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Peter in English — same name
- Pierre in French — same name
- Pietro in Italian — same name
- Pere in Catalan — same name
- Pyotr in Russian — transliteration
- Kepa in Basque — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Pedros among us
people named Pedro are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 2,497 born in 2025 was named Pedro
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Timmy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Pedro's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Timmy climbed just as high around 1959, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Timmy's path sketches the road Pedro is walking now.
Pedro sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Pedro is headed
Pedro should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Pedro beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Pedro in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the same in Spanish, Portuguese and English, with no variant spellings competing for it — rarely misspelled once heard.
- Maps directly onto Peter, Pierre, Pietro and Pere, so it connects a child to relatives with the same name in another language.
- An unbroken record from the medieval Iberian kingdoms to the present, with no gap that would date it to one generation.
- Established diminutives ready to hand: Pedrito, Pedrinho, Perico.
- Present in US records since the earliest counts and steady since, without a fashion spike attached to it.
- In English-only settings the vowels get flattened and the tapped r disappears, so the name your family says at home and the name a coach shouts across a field may not sound quite the same.
- The 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite put "Vote for Pedro" on T-shirts, and the phrase still surfaces. It has faded a good deal, but it is worth knowing about.
- Pedro has sometimes been used in American popular culture as a generic stand-in for a Spanish-speaking man, which can invite lazy jokes from people who deal in them.
- It is far more common in Texas, California and Florida than in much of the country, so a Pedro may be the only one in his grade in some places and one of several in others.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Pedro to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Pedro? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Pedro
Masculine · #455 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Pedros are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 77,500 people named Pedro are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Pedro in 2025?
- Pedro ranks #455 among US boy names in 2025, with 684 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Pedro?
- About 1 in every 2,497 US boys born in 2025 was named Pedro — 684 in all.
- Will my child share the name Pedro with classmates?
- Pedro will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Pedro
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sage#455 · Oakley#454 · Jake#457 · Johnny#457 · Karson#453 · Rome#452 · Kane#451 · Rocco#459
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Pedro? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Pedro and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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