Nickalas
A masculine variant of Nicholas meaning "victory of the people".
Name Census estimates that about 593 living Americans carry the first name Nickalas. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Nickalas today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Nickalas births was 1996 (36 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Nickalas. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
593
~ 1 in 578,001 Americans
Peak year
1996
36 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2012 SSA rank
#8,669
Tracked since 1976
Census
Nickalas in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 471 people with the first name Nickalas, which placed it at #21,522 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#21,522
National first-name rank
People counted
471
471 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
79.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Nickalas
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nickalas is White at 79.0%. The next largest groups are Black (8.3%) and Hispanic (7.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Nickalas described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Nickalas at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White79.0% · 372
- Black or African American8.3% · 39
- Hispanic or Latino7.0% · 33
- Two or more races5.5% · 26
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.2% · 1
Popularity
Nickalas: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Nickalas from the 1970s through to the 2010s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 265 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Nickalas by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Nickalas during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Nickalas' live
Origin
Meaning and history of Nickalas
The name Nickalas is derived from the Greek name Nikolaos, which is a combination of the words "nikos" meaning "victory" and "laos" meaning "people." It is believed to have originated around the 5th century BCE in ancient Greece.
The name Nikolaos was later adopted by the Romans and Latinized to "Nicolaus." It gained popularity as a Christian name due to the reverence for Saint Nicholas, the 4th-century Bishop of Myra, who was known for his generosity and kindness towards children.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Nickalas can be found in the 9th century, when Nickalas I became the Patriarch of Constantinople in 806 CE. Another notable figure was Nickalas of Cusa, a 15th-century German philosopher, theologian, and mathematician, who lived from 1401 to 1464.
During the Renaissance period, the name gained prominence with Nickalas Copernicus, the famous Polish astronomer who formulated the heliocentric model of the solar system. He lived from 1473 to 1543 and is widely regarded as the father of modern astronomy.
In the realm of literature, Nickalas Udall was an English playwright and cleric who lived from 1504 to 1556. He is best known for his comedy play "Ralph Roister Doister," which is considered one of the earliest examples of English Renaissance drama.
Another prominent figure was Nickalas Culpeper, an English botanist, herbalist, and physician, who lived from 1616 to 1654. He is remembered for his influential book "The English Physitian," which promoted the use of herbal remedies and made medical knowledge more accessible to the general public.
The name Nickalas has also been associated with royalty, with Prince Nickalas of Greece and Denmark, who lived from 1872 to 1938. He was the third son of King George I of Greece and served as the High Commissioner of Crete from 1899 to 1906.
People
Nickalas + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Nickalas as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with N
Other first names starting with N with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Nickalas: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Nickalas?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 593 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Nickalas going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 578,001 US residents.
Is Nickalas a common name?
We classify Nickalas as "Very Rare". It ranks above 86.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 609 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Nickalas most popular?
The single biggest year for Nickalas was 1996, when 36 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Nickalas is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Nickalas in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 471 people with the name Nickalas, or 0.16 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #21,522 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Nickalas in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Nickalas?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nickalas appears almost entirely male. Of the 479 people counted with this name, 100.0% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Nickalas?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nickalas is White at 79.0%. The next largest groups are Black (8.3%) and Hispanic (7.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Nickalas most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Nickalas in the 2020 Census, accounting for 79.0% (372 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Nickalas in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Nickalas a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Nickalas in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Nickalas still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Nickalas in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Nickalas can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Nickalas?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.