Find out how popular the last name Nicolaou is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Nicolaou.

Nicolaou, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Nicolaou surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Nicolaou in America

Nicolaou is the 50467th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Nicolaou surname appeared 414 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 people would have the surname Nicolaou.

We can also compare 2010 data for Nicolaou to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Nicolaou

The surname Nicolaou originates from Greece, where it was first recorded in the late 14th century. It is derived from the Greek personal name Nikolaos, which means "victor of the people" and is a combination of the words nike (meaning victory) and laos (meaning people).

The earliest recorded instance of the Nicolaou surname appears in a document from the island of Crete in 1387. This document mentions a landowner named Georgios Nicolaou, who owned a vineyard in the village of Arkalochori. The name was also found in other parts of Greece, such as the Peloponnese region and the Ionian Islands.

In the 15th century, the Nicolaou name appeared in several historical records from the Byzantine Empire. One notable reference is in the chronicles of the siege of Constantinople in 1453, where a soldier named Konstantinos Nicolaou is mentioned as part of the city's defense forces.

As the centuries passed, the Nicolaou surname spread to other parts of the Mediterranean region, including Cyprus, Italy, and the Levant. In the 16th century, a merchant named Alexandros Nicolaou is recorded as having traded goods between the island of Chios and the port of Livorno in Italy.

One of the earliest known individuals with the Nicolaou surname was Georgios Nicolaou, a Greek scholar and philosopher who lived from 1471 to 1541. He was a prominent figure in the intellectual circles of the Renaissance and is known for his work in translating ancient Greek texts into Latin.

Another notable figure was Konstantinos Nicolaou, a Greek revolutionary who fought against the Ottoman Empire during the Greek War of Independence in the early 19th century. He was born in 1785 and played a crucial role in the liberation of the Peloponnese region.

In the 20th century, the Nicolaou surname gained recognition through the work of Kyriacos Nicolaou, a Cypriot-American chemist born in 1946. He is renowned for his contributions to the field of organic synthesis and has been awarded numerous honors, including the prestigious Wolf Prize in Chemistry.

Other individuals with the Nicolaou surname include Eleni Nicolaou, a Greek writer and poet born in 1927, and Andreas Nicolaou, a Cypriot politician and former Minister of Finance, born in 1949.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Nicolaou

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Nicolaou.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Nicolaou was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Nicolaou has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Nicolaou was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Nicolaou, please contact us.

Reference this page

We spend a lot of resources downloading, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site.

If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!