Nickey
Masculine · “victory of the people”
Nickey is given to both — 1,663 boys and 332 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Nickey is a pet form of the Nicholas family, and that family has left more debris in the English language than almost any other name. A metal is named after it. So, probably, is the devil. So is a small dent in a blade, and a prison, and the act of stealing. Very few saints have been treated with such comprehensive disrespect by the language that venerated them.
How old is the name Nickey?
Nickey first appears in US birth records in 1921 — 104 years ago. The typical Nickey alive today was born around 1959, making them about 66 years old. About 1,200 people named Nickey are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Nickey most popular?
Nickey peaked in 1945, reaching #1016 nationally. See the whole 1945 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From The Greek compound behind Nicholas to Nickey
The story of Nickey
German miners in the Middle Ages kept finding an ore that looked like copper and yielded none, and they blamed a mischievous underground spirit they called Nickel, a form of Nicholas used the way English uses Old Nick. They named the useless ore after him, and when a Swedish chemist eventually isolated the metal in it he kept the goblin's half of the name. So the nickel in a pocket, and the coin named after the metal, both descend from a saint by way of a mine spirit and a joke about worthless rock. Whether Old Nick himself comes from Nicholas is a different question and an unsettled one: the Devil acquired the name in English in the seventeenth century, and nobody has established why. Proposals include the saint, a Norse water spirit, and a shortening of the Greek word for victory. None has carried, and it is one of the odder open questions in English etymology.
Meaning
victory of the people
The parent name is built from two Greek elements, one meaning victory and one meaning the people, and its sense has never been in dispute. The short form carries the meaning whole, as short forms do. The endings on it, whether -y, -ie, -ey or nothing at all, contribute no meaning and mostly record when and where the spelling was written down rather than anything about the child.
How the name formed
- The Greek compound behind Nicholas
- Nick as the standard English short form
- Nickey, Nicky and Nickie in the registers
- The word nickel, by way of a mine goblin
Related forms: Nikolaos · Niccolo · Nikolai · Klaas
Pronouncing Nickey
NIK-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first, and identical to Nicky and Nickie in speech. The -ey ending is the least common of the four ways English writes this sound at the end of a pet form, which is why this spelling looks older than the others.
Nicknames for Nickey
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1921
- Most boys named
- 195952 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1016reached in 1945
- Change vs 2006
- 0.0%6 in 2008, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Nickey in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Nikolaos in Greek — related form
- Niccolo in Italian — related form
- Nikolai in Russian — related form
- Klaas in Dutch — related form
Nickeys among us
people named Nickey are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Nickey sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is short, friendly and understood instantly anywhere in the English-speaking world.
- Nick is available as a plainer form the moment a child wants one.
- It works for a boy or a girl, which the registers confirm and which some families want on purpose.
- Four spellings of this pet form are in use and yours will be written as one of the others most of the time.
- It reads as a nickname rather than as a full name, and some people will keep looking for a longer version.
- The name is on the register for both sexes, which means introductions carry no information about which.
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What they receive
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Nickey
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Nickeys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Nickey are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Nickey in 2025?
- Nickey is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Nickey with classmates?
- Nickey will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More N names
The most-given names starting with N, all years combined.
Nicholas#112 · Nathan#63 · Noah#2 · Nathaniel#140 · Norman#1196 · Nolan#65 · Neil#850 · Nicolas#177
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Nickey? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Nickey and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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