# Who's Pete? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 21, 2001, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-pete/66133 "2001-05-21T23:13:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Delila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Delila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delila)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2001, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-pete/66133/1 "2001-05-21T23:13:27Z")
When people say “For Pete’s sake” who is Pete? And how did this quote become attributed to him? Please sight reference. Thank you for your time. ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-pete/66133/2 "2001-05-22T00:46:03Z")
I thought Cecil would have covered this, but but my search didn’t find a column. Most of what I turned up says it refers to St. Peter, **Delila**. Here’s one site that covers it: [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ask-The-Rick/message/7](http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ask-The-Rick/message/7) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-pete/66133/3 "2001-05-22T00:52:22Z")
There was a thread on this a while ago, but I’m not going to try searching for it until the boards speed up a bit. Pete is St. Peter, gatekeeper of Heaven. It’s a euphemism for “for God’s sake”, but you replace God with some other heavenly VIP, typically Pete or Mike (St. Michael the Archangel). ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-pete/66133/4 "2001-05-22T02:36:16Z")
[Pete/Mike](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=57438)