Petrescu
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Petrescu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Romania than in any other country, where it is the 72nd most common surname. In Romanian, recorded as a patrilineal surname.
- RORomania≈1 in 1.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 1.1M
- ITItaly≈1 in 85K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Romania (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 141 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈14,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Romania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
a patrilineal surname
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
How Petrescu is read(measured from records)
Petrescu is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Romanian56%
a patrilineal surname
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English19%
A patrilineal surname from Romanian.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French8.0%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Petrescu in French.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Petrescu counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RO Romania | #72 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Petrescu | 112 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 85K | listed | Petrescu | 33 |
| ES Spain | — | 555 | 1 in 90K | 555 | Petrescu | 44 |
| US United States | — | 295 | 1 in 1.1M | 295 | Petrescu | 141 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 553K | 11 | Petrescu | 62 |
| FI Finland | — | 59 | 1 in 94K | 59 | — | 3 |
| DK Denmark | — | 54 | 1 in 109K | 54 | — | — |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Ghenadie Petrescub. 1836RORomanian Orthodox metropolitan bishop (1836–1918)
- Cezar Petrescub. 1892RORomanian writer (1892–1961)
- Camil Petrescub. 1894RORomanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet (1894–1957)
- Elena Ceaușescub. 1919ROnot in their usual nameRomanian politician (1919–1989)
- Ștefan Petrescub. 1931ROsport shooter (1931–1993)
- Irina Petrescub. 1941RORomanian actress (1941-2013)
- Anca Petrescub. 1949RORomanian architect and politician (1949-2013)
- Dan Petrescub. 1967RORomanian football manager (born 1967)
- Lorab. 1982ROnot in their usual nameRomanian singer, model, judge and TV personality
- Radu Marian Petrescub. 1982ROassociation football referee
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 23 sources across 15 countries.
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Petrescu mean, and where does it come from?
- a patrilineal surname Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Petrescu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 14 thousand people named Petrescu in Romania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled petrescu.
- How common is the name Petrescu?
- In Spain, the national register counted 555 people named Petrescu, about 1 in 90 thousand residents.
- How common is Petrescu compared with other names?
- In Romania, Petrescu is the 72nd most common surname of 78,699 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Petrescu?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/petrescuThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), and bulk access is licensed separately.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Petrescu” — the 72nd most common surname in Romania. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.