"For <xxx> sake" - which variant is more common?

There are a lot of variations of this phrase, most notably including

  • "for God's sake"
  • "for Heaven's sake"
  • "for Jesus sake"
  • "for Pete's sake"

Which of those are most commonly used in modern English? Is there any context in which one of them should be preferred? For example, I have never ever heard about "for Pete's sake" before reading "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov, where this term is widely used.


In both the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and the BNC (British National Corpus), for God’s sake is by far the most frequent. It is followed in the COCA by for Christ’s sake and by for Heaven’s sake in the BNC, where for Christ’s sake ranks third. For Pete’s sake comes in at number four in both, and occurrences of for Jesus’s sake are negligible.


Google Ngram Viewer reports that for God’s sake is most popular in their collection of published books, with for Heaven’s/heaven’s sake second and for Jesus’ sake third:

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Use of all but for God’s sake and for heaven’s sake tapered off during the 20th Century. At the same time, for Pete’s sake and for fuck’s sake made an appearance. Pete and fuck have never caught up to heaven, but are giving Jesus a good run for His money:

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For f***’s sake!

Everyone has their favourite, I am sure there are regional variations, and these expressions come and go in popularity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_dialect_(Scotland)

“Fit Like” is a common expression meaning “What are you like?”

http://www.highland-spirit.com/acatalog/Scottish_Greeting_Cards.html