Ghost image is the main factor which degrades imaging definition and contrast of lenses under backlight illumination. In order to avoid its influence, a reduced ghost image lens with typical Petzval lens is studied. With matrix paraxial optical theory, characteristics of the ghost image are discussed and analyzed in detail, and then suppression method is suggested. According to application requirement, a ghost image reduced lens is optimized and developed. Evaluation of the designed lens′s image quality shows that the ghost image intensity is low and uniform, but its imaging performance is close to diffraction limit. Imaging result under backlight illumination shows that the developed lens has excellent suppression performance of ghost image. The correctness of design and analysis are verified. The suggested suppression method is potential for reducing ghost image of other optical systems.