Nicolas
A masculine name of Greek origin meaning "victory of the people".
Name Census estimates that about 95,468 living Americans carry the first name Nicolas. It sits at #185 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Nicolas today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Nicolas births was 2003 (3,012 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Nicolas. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Nicolas with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Nicolas is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 179 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
95K
~ 1 in 3,590 Americans
Peak year
2003
3,012 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2024 SSA rank
#185
Tracked since 1882
Census
Nicolas in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 99,606 people with the first name Nicolas, which placed it at #552 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
#552
National first-name rank
People counted
100K
99,606 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
33.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
55.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Nicolas
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nicolas is Hispanic at 55.3%. The next largest groups are White (36.0%) and Black (3.5%). 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 Nicolas 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 Nicolas at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino55.3% · 55,109
- White36.0% · 35,905
- Black or African American3.5% · 3,441
- Two or more races2.7% · 2,688
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.2% · 2,157
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.3% · 306
Gender
Gender distribution for Nicolas
Out of the 99,700 babies given the name Nicolas since 1880, 99.8% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Nicolas as a male name
- Ranked #185 in 2024
- 1,992 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2003 (3,003 births)
Nicolas as a female name
- Ranked #17,721 in 2017
- 5 female births in 2017
- Peak: 1988 (14 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nicolas appears almost entirely male. Of the 99,604 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Nicolas: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Nicolas from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 28,308 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Nicolas remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Nicolas 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 Nicolas during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Nicolas' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, Florida recorded the most babies named Nicolas, while Wyoming, Vermont, South Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,896 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Nicolas
The name Nicolas has its origins in the Greek name Nikolaos, which is derived from the words "niko" meaning "victory" and "laos" meaning "people." It is believed to have first emerged during the Hellenistic period, around the 3rd century BC.
The name quickly spread throughout the Greek-speaking world and eventually made its way into the Roman Empire. It gained prominence with the rise of Christianity, as Saint Nicholas of Myra, a 4th-century bishop known for his generosity and kindness, became one of the most widely revered saints in the Christian tradition.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name can be found in the New Testament, where Nicolas of Antioch is mentioned as one of the first seven deacons appointed by the Apostles in the early Christian church.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the name Nicolas remained popular across Europe, particularly in regions with strong ties to the Byzantine Empire or the Eastern Orthodox Church. Notable figures from this period include Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464), a German philosopher, mathematician, and Catholic cardinal, and Nicolas Flamel (c. 1330-1418), a French scribe and manuscript-seller who became the subject of legend as an alleged alchemist.
During the Renaissance, the name continued to be widely used, with individuals such as Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543), the Polish astronomer who proposed the heliocentric model of the solar system, and Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), a French painter known for his classical landscapes and historical scenes.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the name remained popular, with notable bearers including Nicolas Appert (1749-1841), a French inventor credited with developing the method of preserving food in airtight containers, and Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1796-1832), a French military engineer and physicist who laid the foundations of thermodynamics.
Other prominent figures throughout history include Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955), a French painter of Russian descent known for his abstract landscapes, and Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995), a Russian-American composer, conductor, and author who made significant contributions to the study of modern music.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Nicolas
People
Nicolas + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Nicolas 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
Nicolas: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Nicolas?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 95,468 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Nicolas 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 3,590 US residents.
Is Nicolas a common name?
We classify Nicolas as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 99,700 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Nicolas most popular?
The single biggest year for Nicolas was 2003, when 3,012 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Nicolas is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Nicolas in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 99,606 people with the name Nicolas, or 32.98 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #552 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 Nicolas 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 Nicolas?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nicolas appears almost entirely male. Of the 99,604 people counted with this name, 99.7% 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 Nicolas?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nicolas is Hispanic at 55.3%. The next largest groups are White (36.0%) and Black (3.5%). 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 Nicolas most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Nicolas in the 2020 Census, accounting for 55.3% (55,109 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 Nicolas in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Nicolas a male name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Nicolas 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 Nicolas still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Nicolas 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 Nicolas 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 have the name Nicolas?
See how many people have the name Nicolas on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.