Basque2 syllablesAramaic root
Meaning: rock — Peter, straight from the Aramaic.
Kepa
| Origin | Basque — from Aramaic kepha, the word Jesus used when he renamed Simon |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Rock. Greek translated the nickname as Petros, which gave Latin Petrus and Spanish Pedro |
| Pronunciation | KEH-pah — two syllables, stress on the first, both vowels short |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and unknown in America; a familiar name in the Basque Country and a marker of Basque identity within Spain |
| Variants | Peter, Pedro, Pierre, Pietro; Peru and Betiri are the older popular Basque forms |
| Nicknames | Kepatxo; Kepa is already two syllables and rarely shortened |
| In the Bible | John 1:42 — “you shall be called Kephas”; Paul calls him Cephas in Galatians and First Corinthians |
History & meaning
Kepa is the word Jesus actually said. At John 1:42 Simon is renamed Kēphas, a Greek transcription of the Aramaic kepha, "rock", and Paul calls him Cephas in Galatians and First Corinthians. The Gospel Greek then translates the nickname as Petros, and Latin, Spanish and English all follow the translation: Petrus, Pedro, Peter. Basque did something almost nobody else did. It went past the Greek and took the Aramaic.
The choice was Sabino Arana's, in the 1910 Deun-Ixendegi Euzkotarra, and it is the boldest entry in the book. Basque already had serviceable popular forms of Peter: Peru, the name of the hero of Peru Abarka, the novel Juan Antonio Moguel wrote around 1802 and which was not printed until 1881, and Betiri in the northern provinces. Basque also has its own perfectly good word for stone, harri, which Arana could have used and did not. He reached instead for the original, which gives Kepa an odd distinction: a name barely a century old that is closer to what was said on the shore of the Sea of Galilee than any form Europe has used in two thousand years.
Why parents choose it
Two clean syllables with a Gospel scene inside them, and a shape that resembles nothing else on a class list in Britain or America. In the Basque Country it reads as solidly traditional despite its actual age.
Middle names for Kepa
An unstressed second syllable hands over easily to something longer: Kepa Andoni, Kepa Julen, Kepa Mateo, Kepa Nikolas. The middle names guide has the rest.
Famous Kepas
Kepa Arrizabalaga became the most expensive goalkeeper in the world when Chelsea met his Athletic Club release clause in 2018, and has since played for Real Madrid and Bournemouth. Kepa Junkera, from Bilbao, took the trikitixa — the Basque diatonic accordion — onto international stages, recording with musicians from Galicia to Bulgaria.
Consider instead
Peter is the translation the rest of Europe settled for. Pierce is the same rock by way of Norman French and Ireland. Koldo is the other Basque name Arana built by going upstream to an older form. See Basque names for the neighbours.