Family name origins & meanings
- Slovenian and Croatian (northern Croatia) : nickname from Slovenian (and Croatian dialect) peti ‘fifth’ or from petek ‘Friday’, perhaps denoting a child born as a fifth child or on a Friday, or (more probably) denoting an ill-fated person, because Friday was considered unlucky in the Middle Ages. This is a very frequent Slovenian surname.
- Hungarian : either a borrowing of the Slovenian name or from a pet form of the personal name Péter, Hungarian form of Peter.