Nicholas

711,305 people in America carry this name — ranked #49 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it NIH kuh luhs

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

N IH1 K AH0 L AH0 S — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 711,305 2020 Census
  • Rank #49 Very common
  • Per 100,000 235.5 about 1 in 466 people
  • As a surname 25,235 ranked #1,378 the other way round

What Nicholas means and where it comes from

Greek in origin, reading literally as “victory of the people”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Nicholas through the years

912,162 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1995, with 29,213 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90s 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1990s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Nicholas

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Nicholas Steven — runs together
  • Nicholas Stephen — runs together
  • Nicholas Scott — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

What Nicholas is called for short

Short forms as recorded in a 19th-century glossary of Christian names, so the list is old rather than complete.

Going quiet

Nicholas has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Millennials.

Is Nicholas a boy's or a girl's name?

99.9% men
935 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The states where Nicholas is most common

In Rhode Island the name is given 1.8 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Rhode Island ×1.8
  • New Hampshire ×1.8
  • Maine ×1.6
  • Vermont ×1.6
  • Connecticut ×1.6

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Spellings of Nicholas

Nicholas is how 86% of them spell it — 825,662 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

This name in other languages

  • Nils Swedish
  • Nilo Finn
  • Niku Finn
  • Niel Danish
  • Nick English
  • Klas Bav.|Dan
  • Niles Finn
  • Nikla Bav
  • Nikki Finn
  • Nikka Lapp
  • Nicol Scottish
  • Kolja Russian
  • Klavs Lett
  • Nikola Russian

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 77.5%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 4.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 11.5%
  • Two or more races — 3.9%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.0%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Names with the same rhythm as Nicholas

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Try it Compare Two Names

Put another name beside this one.

One of those is not in the census file.

Open Compare Two Names on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Greek origin