Nichols

At the 2020 census, 136,692 Americans bore the surname Nichols — 206th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 2,187.

By the numbers

People: 136,692
Rank: 206th
How common: 1 in 2,187
Per 100,000: 45.7

Where the name comes from

Origin a given name

From Nichol, medieval vernacular form of the given name Nicholas + the patronymic suffix.

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

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Nichols described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 79.3%
Black, not Hispanic 11.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Nichols

Mike Nichols (1931–2014)American director and comedian
Mitch Nichols (born 1989)Australian association football player
Nichelle Nichols (1932–2022)American actress
Rachel Nichols (born 1980)American actress and model
Marisol Nichols (born 1973)American actress
Austin Nichols (born 1980)American actor and director
Mary Ann Nichols (1845–1888)Whitechapel murder victim
Vincent Nichols (born 1945)British cardinal

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

Surnames like Nichols

Also a first name

Nichols has been given to 758 American babies as a first name since 1914, peaking in 1987. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.