Nicholas: Meaning of Baby Name Nicholas

About the Name Nicholas

Nicholas descends from the Greek Nikolaos, composed of nikē (victory) and laos (people) — yielding "victory of the people" or "people's champion." The name's overwhelming cultural anchor is Saint Nicholas of Myra (270–343 CE), the Greek bishop of Myra (modern-day Demre, Turkey) whose legendary acts of secret gift-giving — particularly to three poor sisters who lacked dowries — made him the patron saint of children, sailors, merchants, and pawnbrokers. Saint Nicholas's association with Christmas gift-giving, particularly through Dutch Sinterklaas tradition, evolved over several centuries into the modern figure of Santa Claus.

The name has been continuously used across Christian Europe for over a millennium. Notable bearers include Russian tsars Nicholas I and Nicholas II (the last Russian tsar, executed 1918 along with his family), composer Niccolò Paganini, philosopher Nicholas of Cusa (15th-century theologian and proto-scientist), and several popes (Nicholas I through V). In English-language naming, Nicholas Nickleby (Charles Dickens, 1839) and modern actor Nicholas Cage (born Nicolas Coppola) sustain the name's literary and pop-culture register.

Nicholas held a US top-25 boys' rank from 1980 through 2009 — three decades of top-tier American popularity. The name has receded slightly since but remains in steady use. The appeal is its dignified Christian classicism combined with three syllables that nickname easily. Common nicknames Nick, Nicky, and the rarer Cole each carry distinct registers; the alternate spelling Nicolas (without the H) is the French and Spanish form. International forms include Nicolaus (Latin), Nicolás (Spanish), Niccolò (Italian), Nicolas (French), Nikolai (Russian), Nikola (Slavic), and the original Greek Nikolaos.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Nicholas

1,029

Greek baby names in our dictionary

484

Greek male names

54

8-letter N-names in our dictionary

288

N-male names total

1972–2025

years of US SSA records (54 total)

823,763

total US births named Nicholas (all years)

US Popularity History (1972–2025)

↘️ Falling: Nicholas dropped 25 places in the US boys ranking over the last 5 years (#87 in 2020 → #112 in 2025).

Annual US births named Nicholas by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1995 with 29,161 boys named Nicholas (boy rank #6 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #112 for boys (3,115 US births). That's 106 places below its 1995 peak.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.

Where in the US Is Nicholas Most Popular?

Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Nicholas the strongest states are New Jersey, New York, Connecticut.

Strongest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	New Jersey	#29	2,227
2	New York	#35	4,131
3	Connecticut	#42	756
4	Massachusetts	#57	1,125
5	Rhode Island	#61	190
6	Pennsylvania	#63	1,955
7	Illinois	#68	1,701
8	Florida	#72	2,667
9	District of Columbia	#75	127
10	California	#75	5,492

Weakest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Montana	#234	22
2	Iowa	#233	186
3	South Dakota	#231	19
4	North Dakota	#207	48
5	Idaho	#197	130
6	Arkansas	#196	189
7	Nebraska	#192	145
8	Oregon	#182	230
9	Utah	#180	278
10	Minnesota	#168	387

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Nicholas in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Claus	People's Victory	Male	Greek
Cole	From The Dark Town: Abbreviation Of Nicholas People's Victory.	Male	English
Colin	Virile	Male	Gaelic
Klaus	Danish Form Of Nicholas (People's Victory)	Male	Danish
Nick	Abbreviation Of Nicholas. Mythological Nike Was Greek Goddess Of Victory And Root Origin Of Nicholas.	Male	English
Nicky	Abbreviation Of Nicholas. Mythological Nike Was Greek Goddess Of Victory And Root Origin Of Nicholas.	Male	English
Nico	Abbreviation Of Nicholas. Mythological Nike Was Greek Goddess Of Victory And Root Origin Of Nicholas.	Male	English
Nikita	Victorious People NINOCHKA, NINA	Female	Russian
Nikki	Abbreviation Of Nicholas. Mythological Nike Was Greek Goddess Of Victory And Root Origin Of Nicholas.	Male	English
Nikolaus	Victorious: Conquerer Of The People. Variant Of Nicholas.	Male	German

Famous People Named Nicholas

1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Nicholas.

Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia.

Browse more famous Nicholass and similar first names →

Looking for names like Nicholas?

A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.

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Compare Nicholas to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Nicholas against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Nicholas vs Liam 239,320 births since 2014

Nicholas vs Noah 230,181 births since 2014

Nicholas vs Oliver 164,076 births since 2014

Nicholas vs William 159,918 births since 2014

Nicholas vs James 157,850 births since 2014

Nicholas vs Elijah 153,351 births since 2014

Nicholas vs Benjamin 147,449 births since 2014

Nicholas vs Lucas 141,302 births since 2014

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