Nicholas vs Nicolai
American parents have registered 929,199 Nicholases since 1880, against 1,865 Nicolais. Nicholas is still ahead, with 3,123 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Nicholas Nicolai
Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.
Who was ahead
Nicholas has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.
The closest they came was 2022, when Nicholas had 3,649 and Nicolai had 69.
Side by side
| Nicholas | Nicolai | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 929,199 | 1,865 |
| Most in one year | 29,216 | 78 |
| Babies in 2025 | 3,123 | 51 |
| Estimated living today | 843,000 | 1,800 |
| Median age today | 31 | 15 |
| Peak year | 1995 | 2015 |
| Best rank | 7th boys | 1,870th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 112th | 2,572nd |
| First recorded | 1880 | 1962 |
| Girls / boys | 3,152 / 926,047 | 0 / 1,865 |
A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.
Which name is older
Half of the Nicholases alive today are over 31; half the Nicolais are over 15. That is 16 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Nicholas New Hampshire (1.8×), Connecticut (1.7×), Rhode Island (1.7×)
- Nicolai California (5.4×), Florida (3.8×), Texas (2.4×)
How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.
Both names abroad
Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.
| Country | Nicholas | Nicolai |
|---|---|---|
| England and Wales | 16,217 | 88 |
| Norway | 1,491 | 3,079 |
| France | 805 | 140 |
| Poland | 706 | 13 |
| Belgium | 398 | 6 Nicolaï |
Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.
Compare something else
Related comparisons
Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Nicholas and Nicolai.