June 29th is the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles.

This post is about the name of one of these great Saints.

Note: I felt inspired to write this post in 2024 and publish it in 2025. I dedicate this post to the pope, who is the successor of St. Peter the Apostle

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Peter

Origin and Meaning

• Derived from Greek Πέτρος (Petros) meaning “stone”
• This is a translation used in most versions of the New Testament of the name Cephas, meaning “stone” in Aramaic

Spelling Variations

• Peter – Dutch, English, German, Norwegian, Swedish
• Piers – British 
• Petros – Armenian, Greek
• Petar – Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian
• Piotr – Belarusian, Polish
• Pierre – French
• Pier – Dutch, Italian
• Pietro, Pierino, Piero – Italian
• Pedro – Portuguese, Spanish
• Peder – Danish, Norwegian, Swedish
• Petre – Georgian, Macedonian, Romanian
• Pika – Hawaiian
• Botros, Boutros, Butrus – Arabic, Coptic
• Petra (feminine) – Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish

Information from: behindthename.com

People

• St. Peter the Apostle (died 64-68 AD) is the leader of Jesus’ twelve Apostles and the first pope. He was introduced to Jesus by his brother Andrew. Tradition holds that he was initially married, and his wife supported Jesus’ ministry and died a martyr. He had a strong personality and reveals his humanity and weaknesses throughout the New Testament. Ultimately, he spread the gospel and Christianity with zeal. He died a martyr in Rome around the same time as St. Paul.
• St. Peter Claver (1581–1654) is a Spanish Jesuit missionary. Peter Claver left his homeland forever in 1610 to be a missionary in the colonies of the New World. He sailed into Cartagena, a rich port city washed by the Caribbean. He was ordained there in 1615. By this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly 100 years, and Cartagena was a chief center for it. Ten thousand slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Although the practice of slave-trading was condemned by Pope Paul III and later labeled “supreme villainy” by Pope Pius IX, it continued to flourish. Claver’s predecessor, Jesuit Father Alfonso de Sandoval, had devoted himself to the service of the slaves for 40 years before Peter arrived to continue his work, declaring himself “the slave of the Negroes forever.” As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and exhausted passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, he plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons, and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God’s love. During the 40 years of his ministry, he instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves. His apostolate extended beyond his care for slaves. He became a moral force, indeed, the apostle of Cartagena. He preached in the city square, gave missions to sailors and traders as well as country missions, during which he avoided, when possible, the hospitality of the planters and owners and lodged in the slave quarters instead. After four years of sickness, which forced the saint to remain inactive and largely neglected, Claver died on September 8, 1654. The city magistrates, who had previously frowned at his solicitude for the black outcasts, ordered that he should be buried at public expense and with great pomp. Peter Claver was canonized in 1888, and Pope Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among black slaves. In Spanish, his full name is Pedro Claver y Corberó.
• Ven. Pierre Toussaint (1766–1853) was born in modern-day Haiti and brought to New York City as a slave. He died a free man, a renowned hairdresser, and one of New York City’s most well-known Catholics. Plantation owner Pierre Bérard made Toussaint a house slave and allowed his grandmother to teach her grandson how to read and write. In his early 20s, Toussaint, his younger sister, his aunt, and two other house slaves accompanied their master’s son to New York City because of political unrest at home. Apprenticed to a local hairdresser, he learned the trade quickly and eventually worked very successfully in the homes of rich women in New York City. When his master died, Pierre was determined to support himself, his master’s widow, and the other house slaves. He was freed shortly before the widow’s death in 1807. Four years later, he married Marie Rose Juliette, whose freedom he had purchased. They later adopted Euphémie, his orphaned niece. Both preceded Pierre in death. He attended daily Mass at St. Peter’s Church on Barclay Street, the same parish that Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton had attended. He donated to various charities, generously assisting blacks and whites in need. He and his wife opened their home to orphans and educated them. The couple also nursed abandoned people who were suffering from yellow fever. Urged to retire and enjoy the wealth he had accumulated, Pierre responded, “I have enough for myself, but if I stop working I have not enough for others.” He originally was buried outside St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, where he was once refused entrance because of his race. His sanctity and the popular devotion to him caused his body to be moved to the present location of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. Pierre Toussaint was declared Venerable in 1996.
• St. Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868) is a French priest and founder of two religious institutes: the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament for men and (with Marguerite Guillot) the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament for women. His faith journey drew him from becoming a diocesan priest in 1834, to joining the Marists in 1839, to founding a religious community in 1856. Peter Julian coped with poverty, his father’s initial opposition to his vocation, serious illness, a Jansenistic overemphasis on sin, and the difficulties of getting diocesan and later papal approval for his new religious community. His years as a Marist, including service as a provincial leader, saw the deepening of his Eucharistic devotion, especially through his preaching of Forty Hours in many parishes. Inspired at first by the idea of reparation for indifference to the Eucharist, he was eventually attracted to a more positive spirituality of Christ-centered love. Members of the men’s community which he founded alternated between an active apostolic life and contemplating Jesus in the Eucharist. Peter Julian Eymard was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1962, one day after Vatican II’s first session ended. In French, his full name is Pierre-Julien Eymard. 

Information from franciscanmedia.org

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Note: The photo above is from the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome and the official ecclesiastical seat of the pope as bishop of Rome. The photo is from my parents