Nikola
Nikola is a boy's name that peaked in 2020, when it was the 1,237th most popular in the United States. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 1,644th. About 4,000 Nikolas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 14.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Nikola boys named Nikola
Girls and boys called Nikola
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Nikola crossed from girls to boys in 1976, and has stayed there for 48 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 95% boys, which is roughly where it still is.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 53 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
- 4,102
- Estimated living today
- 4,000
- Median age today
- 14
- Peak year
- 2020
- Best rank
- 1,237th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,644th
- First recorded
- 1948
- Girls / boys
- 658 / 3,444
How old the living Nikolas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 4,102 babies given the name since 1948, about 4,000 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 2,300 of them are children and 7 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2011 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 Nikolas
- Nikola Tesla (1856–1943)Serbian-American engineer and inventor
- Nikola Gruevski (born 1970)Former politician from North Macedonia
- Nikola Kalinić (born 1988)Croatian association football player
- Nikola Jokić (born 1995)Serbian basketball player
- Nikola Žigić (born 1980)Serbian footballer
- Nikola Vlašić (born 1997)Croatian footballer
- Nikola Pašić (1845–1926)Serbian politician
- Nikola Karabatić (born 1984)French handball player
People named Nikola with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Nikola is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Nikola is most concentrated in Illinois (5.1×), Florida (2.8×), California (2.4×), New York (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2020
The most popular boys’ names the year Nikola peaked:
Nikola elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland girls | Nikola | 74,002 birth registrations | 9th |
| England and Wales girls | Nikola | 1,781 | 283rd |
| France boys | Nikola | 1,585 | 583rd |
| Switzerland boys | Nikola | 1,262 | 99th |
| Italy boys | Nikola | 750 | — |
| Ireland girls | Nikola | 380 | 142nd |
| Norway boys | Nikola | 352 | 288th |
| England and Wales boys | Nikola | 327 | 1,146th |
| Norway girls | Nikola | 241 | 245th |
| Scotland girls | Nikola | 181 | 267th |
| Belgium boys | Nikola | 153 | 773rd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Nikola | 73 | 150th |
| Belgium girls | Nikola | 28 | 842nd |
| France girls | Nikola | 15 | 7,216th |
| Ireland boys | Nikola | 10 | 657th |
| Poland boys | Nikola | 9 birth registrations | 411th |
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.
Nikola: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Nikola | 1,037 | 0.083% | 82nd |
| French boys | Switzerland | Nikola | 164 | 0.038% | 158th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Nikola | 60 | 0.092% | 53rd |
| Romansh boys | Switzerland | Nikola | 1 | 0.027% | 10th |
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, Nikola is most concentrated in Basel-Stadt, where 0.13% of children were given it – 48 of them.
Nikola: rank by region
In 2022, Nikola was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Nikola | 679 | 7 |
In 2025, Nikola was given 2 times or more in 16 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Nikola | 57 | 39 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Nikola | 58 | 23 |
| Lubelskie | Nikola | 43 | 34 |
| Lubuskie | Nikola | 65 | 8 |
| Łódzkie | Nikola | 35 | 59 |
| Małopolskie | Nikola | 43 | 79 |
| Mazowieckie | Nikola | 50 | 102 |
| Opolskie | Nikola | 95 | 3 |
| Podkarpackie | Nikola | 40 | 52 |
| Podlaskie | Nikola | 35 | 32 |
| Pomorskie | Nikola | 57 | 37 |
| Śląskie | Nikola | 70 | 33 |
| Świętokrzyskie | Nikola | 33 | 29 |
| Warmińsko-Mazurskie | Nikola | 54 | 18 |
| Wielkopolskie | Nikola | 59 | 47 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Nikola | 45 | 28 |
In 2017, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Nikola appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (278th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, 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.
Nikola by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 29 | 383rd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Nikola 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 boys | Nikola | 51 | 85 |
| Finland girls | Nikola | 15 | 48 |
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 Nikola lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 599 men called Nikola 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
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bizkaia | Nikola | 108 | 0.191 | 441 |
| Segovia | Nikola | 12 | 0.151 | 492 |
| Burgos | Nikola | 14 | 0.077 | 772 |
| Valladolid | Nikola | 17 | 0.066 | 790 |
| Gipuzkoa | Nikola | 16 | 0.045 | 1,127 |
| Balears, Illes | Nikola | 24 | 0.039 | 1,494 |
Listed in 24 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 28 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
Nikola 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.