Nikolay
Nikolay was given to 14 boys in 2025, #6,338 among boys’ names; 507 Americans have been recorded with it since 1992 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Nikolay by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Nikolay?
#6,338 among boys’ names, 2025
Nikolay fell from #3,956 in 2015 to #6,338 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born fell from 14.1 to 8.2 per million.
32 babies in 2010, the peak
Nikolay peaked in 2010, when 32 boys were given it, #3,421 among boys’ names. The 14 births of 2025 are 44% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 14 | #6,338 | 8.2 |
| 2024 | 20 | #4,996 | 11.6 |
| 2023 | 7 | #10,485 | 4.1 |
| 2022 | 17 | #5,568 | 9.7 |
| 2021 | 16 | #5,704 | 9.1 |
| 2020 | 17 | #5,396 | 9.8 |
| 2019 | 17 | #5,493 | 9.5 |
| 2018 | 13 | #6,591 | 7.2 |
| 2017 | 19 | #5,054 | 10.3 |
| 2016 | 15 | #5,971 | 7.9 |
Every recorded year (32)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 27 | #3,956 | 14.1 |
| 2014 | 29 | #3,665 | 15.1 |
| 2013 | 27 | #3,824 | 14.3 |
| 2012 | 19 | #4,982 | 10.0 |
| 2011 | 21 | #4,615 | 11.1 |
| 2010 | 32 | #3,421 | 16.7 |
| 2009 | 31 | #3,526 | 15.6 |
| 2008 | 15 | #5,976 | 7.4 |
| 2007 | 17 | #5,358 | 8.2 |
| 2006 | 22 | #4,325 | 10.7 |
| 2005 | 14 | #5,790 | 7.0 |
| 2004 | 22 | #4,090 | 11.1 |
| 2003 | 11 | #6,584 | 5.6 |
| 2002 | 11 | #6,388 | 5.7 |
| 2001 | 9 | #7,338 | 4.6 |
| 2000 | 11 | #6,191 | 5.6 |
| 1998 | 6 | #9,291 | 3.1 |
| 1997 | 7 | #7,875 | 3.7 |
| 1995 | 5 | #9,864 | 2.6 |
| 1994 | 6 | #8,493 | 3.1 |
| 1993 | 5 | #9,728 | 2.5 |
| 1992 | 5 | #9,404 | 2.5 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Nikolay a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Nikolay has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 32 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Nikolay: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Nikolay, and how old are they?
An estimated 501 Americans named Nikolay 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 20. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 4,746 people named Nikolay (2 women and girls, 4,744 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 416 born in the U.S. The Census count is 11.4 times 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 Nikolay?
Nikolay is a less common spelling of Nikolai: SSA has recorded 507 Nikolay and 11,027 Nikolai since 1880.
Of these 7 names spelled alike, given to 18,871 babies since 1880, Nikolay is the sixth most given (2.7% of them). In 2025 it was given to 14 of their 659 babies (2.1%), the fourth most given that year.
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 Nikolay
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 Nikolay and names like it
- Compare Nikolay and NikolaiBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sNikolay peaked in 2010.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Nikolay since 1910.
- The top names of 2010The year the most babies were named Nikolay.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Nikolay alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with NMost given first.