Petra — #1478 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Petra

The Social Security Administration has registered 14,398 babies named Petra between 1881 and 2024, spanning 144 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Petra currently holds the #1478 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1927, when 197 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Petra performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 1,791 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Petra shows notable generational variation in parental adoption. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in Texas, which accounts for 5,196 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and New York. In total, SSA state-level files list Petra in 27 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Petra in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 14,398 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.