Nick

115,412 people in America carry this name — ranked #489 of 923.

A name that has never gone out of use.

Say it NIHK

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

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

  • People counted 115,412 2020 Census
  • Rank #489 Common
  • Per 100,000 38.2 about 1 in 2,872 people

What Nick 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.

Nick name popularity by year

49,903 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1960, with 1,099 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1960s. 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 for Nick

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Nick Christopher — runs together
  • Nick Kevin — runs together
  • Nick Kenneth — 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 Nick is short for

Nick is a short form of Nicholas.

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

Never out of use

Nick has been given in every decade on record — no fashion lifted it and none has dropped it.

Is Nick used for boys or for girls?

99.1% men
1,076 women

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

Names with the same rhythm as Nick

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

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

Spellings of Nick

Nick is how 18% of them spell it — 659,488 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.

Full names people carry

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

The states where Nick is most common

In Alaska the name is given 3.0 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Alaska ×3.0
  • Iowa ×1.8
  • Illinois ×1.8
  • California ×1.6
  • Oregon ×1.5

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.

The same name elsewhere

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

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.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher 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