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Nikkole vs Nikolas

American parents have registered 24,050 Nikolases since 1880, against 840 Nikkoles. Nikolas is still ahead, with 375 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Nikkole against Nikolas, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Nikkole Nikolas

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

Nikolas has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1937 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1973, when Nikkole had 30 and Nikolas had 31.

Side by side

  Nikkole Nikolas
Total US births 84024,050
Most in one year 451,065
Babies in 2025 under 5375
Estimated living today 81024,000
Median age today 3621
Peak year 19902004
Best rank 2,600th girls301st boys
Rank in 2025 unranked717th
First recorded 19691937
Girls / boys 840 / 015 / 24,035

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 Nikkoles alive today are over 36; half the Nikolases are over 21. That is 15 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Nikkole and Nikolas.