Elisabeth Peter

Some characteristic forenames: German Hans, Kurt, Otto, Ernst, Fritz, Heinz, Helmut, Horst, Kaspar, Klaus, Siegfried, Wolfgang.

English, Scottish, German, Dutch, French (Alsace and Lorraine), Czech (Moravian), Slovak, Croatian, and Slovenian; Hungarian (Péter): from the personal name Peter (Greek Petros, from petra ‘rock’). The personal name was popular throughout Christian Europe in the Middle Ages, having been bestowed by Christ as a byname on the apostle Simon bar Jonah, the brother of Andrew. The name was chosen by Christ for its symbolic significance (John 1:42, Matt. 16:18); Saint Peter is regarded as the founding head of the Christian Church in view of Christ's saying, ‘Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church’. In Christian Germany in the early Middle Ages this was the most frequent personal name of non-ancient Germanic origin until the 14th century. In North America, this surname has also absorbed cognates from other languages, for example Czech Petr , Polish Piotr and Pietr, Albanian Pjetri (from the personal name Pjetër, definite form Pjetri), and also their derivatives (see examples at Peterson ). It has also been adopted as a surname by Ashkenazic Jews.