Nicola

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Nicola boys named Nicola

Girls and boys called Nicola

years more girls than boys years more boys than girls

Nicola crossed from girls to boys in 2017, having already crossed in 1945, and has stayed there for 9 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 80% boys, and in 2025 it was 70%.

The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 86 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.

By the numbers

Total US births

8,090

Estimated living today

7,000

Median age today

42

Peak year

1972

Best rank

760th

Rank in 2025

8,362nd

First recorded

1908

Girls / boys

5,078 / 3,012

How old the living Nicolas are

born that year still alive today

Of the 8,090 babies given the name since 1908, about 7,000 are alive — 87 in every hundred. Roughly 880 of them are children and 620 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1983 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Ancient Greek

A feminine version of Nicholas, first used in the 20th century.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Nicolas

• Nicola Sturgeon (born 1970)First Minister of Scotland from 2014 to 2023
• Nicola Rizzoli (born 1971)Italian football referee
• Nicola Peltz (born 1995)American actress
• Nicola Pisano (1225–1284)Italian sculptor and architect
• Nicola Zalewski (born 2002)Polish association football player
• Nicola Olyslagers (born 1996)Australian athlete
• Nicola Abbagnano (1901–1990)Italian existential philosopher
• Nicola Porpora (1686–1768)Italian composer

People named Nicola with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Nicola is most common

• NY1,110
• CA765
• NJ252
• IL224
• PA219
• FL126
• MI116
• MA111
• OH103
• TX71

Relative to how many babies each state records, Nicola is most concentrated in New York (4.3×), New Jersey (2.7×), California (2.3×), Connecticut (1.4×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1972

The most popular girls’ names the year Nicola peaked:

• Jennifer
• Michelle
• Lisa
• Kimberly
• Amy
• Angela

All the names of 1972

Nicola elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Nicola: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Nicola is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.33% of children were given it – 207 of them.

Nicola: rank by region

In 2020, Nicola was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

In 2024, Nicola was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2025, Nicola was given 2 times or more in 7 regions of Poland.

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Nicola among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Nicola lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 1,199 men called Nicola and 296 women called Nicola were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Men: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 25 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 27 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 12 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 40 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Nicholas
• Nicole
• Nicolas
• Nichole
• Nick
• Nickolas
• Nico
• Nicolette
• Nicky
• Nicki
• Nicolle
• Nichelle

Nicola against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Nicola vs Nicholas
• Nicola vs Nicole
• Nicola vs Nicolas
• Nicola vs Nichole
• Nicola vs Nick
• Nicola vs Nickolas

Compare Nicola with a name of your own