BabyNameLens · Girl names · Boy names
“The people's victory” — Greek, via Latin and Old French origin
Boy's name · #112 in the US (2025) · 90s
Nicholas's best rank, #5, came in 1999; it has stepped well back to #112 today. Roughly 926,000 boys have been named Nicholas since 1880. In all that time it has never once missed a year of the national records. Nicholas's short forms are Nick, Colin, Cole, Nico, and Nicky. About 2,400 boys a year are given Cole as their full name. Together with its spelling variants Nicolas (#177) and Nikolas (#719), Nicholas would rank around #54 with about 5,500 births last year — the newborns split about 56/37/7 across Nicholas, Nicolas, and Nikolas. Popular twin pairings with Nicholas include Alexander, Nathan, and Christopher for boys, and Sophia for a girl.
Around the world: about 1 in 700 boys in Canada (2024) · about 1 in 790 boys in Sweden (2025) · about 1 in 890 boys in Scotland (2025).
Appears in 2020-2025 birth records of 49 states. See the full state-by-state map on this page.
Among 3,187 notable people named Nicholas:
Lawyers & judges appear 1.65× more often than among typical names — e.g. Nicholas Katzenbach, American lawyer (1922–2012).
Similar names: Nicolas · Christian · Niko · Andrew · Carlos · Austin
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