Boy names that start with P
Two men account for most of this letter. Peter is the rock and Paul is the small one, and between them they have generated a dozen national variants that all still start with P — Pedro, Pietro, Pavlo, Pablo. Around that centre sit the English surname names, a handful of Persian and Vietnamese arrivals, and outliers like Peregrine. Every entry links to a full page with meaning, origin, and pairings.
The most familiar P names
No boy's name beginning with P appears anywhere in the current U.S. Social Security top 100 — the letter has no representative at all, which is why nothing on this page carries a rank. Paul, Peter and Patrick were all top-100 American names for most of the twentieth century, and none of them is now. These four are still the P names an English speaker recognises without thinking.
- PeterPEE-terGreek
Rock, stone. It is not an old Greek name at all — it was made to order when Simon was renamed Cephas, the Aramaic for rock, and Greek rendered that as Petros.
- PaulPAWLLatin
Small, little, humble. A Roman family nickname that the apostle carried into every European language; he is Saul in the first half of Acts and Paul thereafter.
- PatrickPAT-rikLatin
Nobleman, from patricius. The saint who converted Ireland was a Romano-Briton taken there as a slave, which makes the most Irish name in the world a Latin import.
- PhilipFIL-ipGreek
Lover of horses. Philip II of Macedon built the army his son Alexander then marched to India with.
Classic P names
- ParkerPAR-kurEnglish
Keeper of a park — a medieval job title for the man who managed a lord's deer enclosure. The most-used surname name on this page.
- PrestonPRESS-tunEnglish
Priest's settlement. There is a Preston in Lancashire and several more scattered across England; the name reached America as a surname first.
- PaxtonPAX-tunEnglish
Pæcc's settlement — an Anglo-Saxon man's farm. Modern parents tend to hear the Latin pax in it, which is a happy accident rather than the etymology.
- PercyPUR-seeEnglish
From the Norman village of Perci. The Percys were the great border family of medieval Northumberland; Percy Bysshe Shelley gave the name its poetry.
- PerryPERR-eeEnglish
Dweller by the pear tree, and separately a short form of Peregrine. Two roots, one spelling.
- PiercePEERSSNorman
Rock — the same word as Peter, arriving through the Norman Piers. Long established in Ireland as an anglicised surname, and worn by Pierce Brosnan.
Peter and Paul around the world
These eight are the same two names in other mouths. The Peters all mean rock; the Pauls all mean small.
- PedroPEH-drohSpanish & Portuguese
Rock. Pedro I declared Brazil independent in 1822 and made himself its emperor, which is a lot of weight for one syllable to carry.
- PietroPYEH-trohItalian
Rock. The basilica in Rome is San Pietro, built over the place the apostle is said to be buried.
- PieterPEE-terDutch
Rock. Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted the peasant weddings and the hunters in the snow.
- PetroPET-roUkrainian
Stone, rock. Petro is the Ukrainian form; Petro Poroshenko served as the country's president from 2014 to 2019.
- PabloPAH-blohSpanish
Small, humble. Two of the twentieth century's largest figures — Picasso and Neruda — were called the little one.
- PaoloPAH-oh-lohItalian
Small, humble. Three vowels in a row at the front, which is very Italian and very hard for English speakers to say slowly.
- PavelPAH-vyelRussian
Small, humble — a Roman nickname that outlived Rome. Tsar Paul I of Russia was Pavel Petrovich.
- PavloPAV-loUkrainian
Small, humble. The Ukrainian form, one letter and a world away from the Russian one.
P names from around the world
- Parsapar-SAHPersian
Persian, in the oldest sense — the name of the region and its people. In modern Persian it also means pious or devout.
- PouyaPOO-yahPersian
Dynamic; in motion; one who keeps seeking. A modern Iranian name built from an old verb.
- PengPUNGChinese
The vast bird of the Zhuangzi — 鹏, whose wings darken the sky when it turns north. The character exists for almost nothing else.
- PhongFAWNGVietnamese
Wind, the character 風. Vietnamese boys' names are often one weather-sized syllable like this.
- PhúcFOOKVietnamese
Blessing, good fortune — 福, the character pasted on doors across East Asia at new year.
- PonoPOH-nohHawaiian
Goodness, uprightness, right balance. It is the last word of Hawaii's state motto: the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.
Unique P names
- PeregrinePERR-uh-grinLatin
Traveller, pilgrim, one from abroad — the same word behind the peregrine falcon. Peregrine White was born aboard the Mayflower in 1620, which is about as literal as a name gets.
- PhineasFIN-ee-usHebrew
Probably the Nubian, borrowed into Hebrew from Egyptian. P. T. Barnum was Phineas Taylor Barnum, which suits a name this theatrical.
- PatxiPAH-cheeBasque
The Basque familiar form of Francisco. The tx spelling is pure Euskara and gives the name its soft central click.
- PřemyslPRZHEH-mislCzech
One who thinks things out. Přemysl the Ploughman was called from his field to found the dynasty that ruled Bohemia for four hundred years.
- Przemysławpsheh-MIH-swahfPolish
Cunning joined to glory: glory won by ingenuity rather than force. Four consonants before the first vowel, and Poles say it without pausing.
- Pascalpas-KALFrench
Of Easter — a name for a boy born in Holy Week. Blaise Pascal did the mathematics of probability and then wrote the Pensées.