Nihal
Nihal is a boy's name that peaked in 2025, when it was the 2,941st most popular in the United States. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 2,941st. About 1,100 Nihals are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 11.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Nihal boys named Nihal
Girls and boys called Nihal
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 238 girls and 825 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 12 to 42.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 22 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
- 1,063
- Estimated living today
- 1,100
- Median age today
- 11
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 2,941st
- Rank in 2025
- 2,941st
- First recorded
- 1993
- Girls / boys
- 238 / 825
How old the living Nihals are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,063 babies given the name since 1993, about 1,100 are alive — 99 in every hundred. Roughly 810 of them are children and 0 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2014 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.
Notable Nihals
- Nihal Atsız (1905–1975)Turkish poet and writer
People named Nihal with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Nihal is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Nihal is most concentrated in California (7.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular boys’ names the year Nihal peaked:
Nihal elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Nihal | 870 | 812th |
| England and Wales boys | Nihal | 635 | 721st |
| Belgium girls | Nihal | 246 | 500th |
| Italy girls | Nihal | 243 | — |
| England and Wales girls | Nihal | 116 | 1,545th |
| Scotland boys | Nihal | 11 | 535th |
| Ireland boys | Nihal | 3 | 715th |
| Poland boys | Nihal | 2 birth registrations | 663rd |
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.
Nihal: rank by region
In 2022, Nihal was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brussels | Nihal | 271 | 5 |
In 2022, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Nihal appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (271st).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 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.
Nihal by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 2 | 538th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Nihal 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.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Nihal | 11 | 13 |
| Finland boys | Nihal | 6 | 9 |
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 Nihal lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 510 women called Nihal were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceuta | Nihal | 8 | 0.193 | 586 |
| Almería | Nihal | 38 | 0.101 | 782 |
| Teruel | Nihal | 5 | 0.075 | 841 |
| Murcia | Nihal | 59 | 0.074 | 868 |
| Navarra | Nihal | 18 | 0.052 | 1,262 |
| Tarragona | Nihal | 20 | 0.046 | 1,385 |
Listed in 28 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 24 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
Nihal against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.