Nickolai
Nickolai was given to 10 boys in 2025, #8,055 among boys’ names; 533 Americans have been recorded with it since 1976 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Nickolai by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Nickolai?
#8,055 among boys’ names, 2025
Nickolai fell from #3,564 in 2015 to #8,055 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born fell from 16.2 to 5.9 per million.
31 babies in 2015, the peak
Nickolai peaked in 2015, when 31 boys were given it, #3,564 among boys’ names. The 10 births of 2025 are 32% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 10 | #8,055 | 5.9 |
| 2024 | 11 | #7,605 | 6.4 |
| 2023 | 15 | #6,132 | 8.8 |
| 2022 | 16 | #5,796 | 9.2 |
| 2021 | 12 | #6,980 | 6.9 |
| 2020 | 21 | #4,650 | 12.2 |
| 2019 | 16 | #5,726 | 8.9 |
| 2018 | 25 | #4,181 | 13.8 |
| 2017 | 18 | #5,238 | 9.7 |
| 2016 | 24 | #4,279 | 12.6 |
Every recorded year (35)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 31 | #3,564 | 16.2 |
| 2014 | 17 | #5,410 | 8.9 |
| 2013 | 20 | #4,749 | 10.6 |
| 2012 | 29 | #3,681 | 15.3 |
| 2011 | 12 | #6,872 | 6.3 |
| 2010 | 21 | #4,635 | 10.9 |
| 2009 | 20 | #4,873 | 10.1 |
| 2008 | 28 | #3,801 | 13.7 |
| 2007 | 17 | #5,357 | 8.2 |
| 2006 | 25 | #3,962 | 12.2 |
| 2005 | 20 | #4,412 | 10.0 |
| 2004 | 11 | #6,840 | 5.5 |
| 2003 | 11 | #6,582 | 5.6 |
| 2002 | 11 | #6,387 | 5.7 |
| 2001 | 9 | #7,333 | 4.6 |
| 2000 | 12 | #5,804 | 6.1 |
| 1999 | 11 | #5,925 | 5.7 |
| 1998 | 8 | #7,331 | 4.2 |
| 1997 | 10 | #5,961 | 5.3 |
| 1996 | 6 | #8,674 | 3.2 |
| 1995 | 9 | #6,252 | 4.7 |
| 1993 | 11 | #5,256 | 5.6 |
| 1990 | 5 | #9,084 | 2.4 |
| 1980 | 5 | #6,969 | 2.8 |
| 1976 | 6 | #5,408 | 3.8 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Nickolai a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Nickolai has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 35 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Nickolai: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Nickolai, and how old are they?
An estimated 525 Americans named Nickolai and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 14 years old and half are between 9 and 21. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 540 people named Nickolai (3 women and girls, 537 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 448 born in the U.S. The Census count is 21% above that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
How common is the spelling Nickolai?
Nickolai is a less common spelling of Nikolai: SSA has recorded 533 Nickolai and 11,027 Nikolai since 1880.
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 19,459 babies since 1880, Nickolai is the fifth most given (2.7% of them). In 2025 it was given to 10 of their 659 babies (1.5%), again the fifth most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Nickolai
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Nickolai and names like it
- Compare Nickolai and NikolaiBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sNickolai peaked in 2015.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Nickolai since 1910.
- The top names of 2015The year the most babies were named Nickolai.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Nickolai alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with NMost given first.