Nickolaus
Masculine · “victory of the people”
The ck in this spelling belongs to neither language the name comes from. Greek does not have it and German does not use it here — the German form is Nikolaus, with a single k — so the letter pair is a purely English addition dropped into an otherwise continental spelling.
How old is the name Nickolaus?
Nickolaus first appears in US birth records in 1921 — 104 years ago. The typical Nickolaus alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 1,700 people named Nickolaus are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Nickolaus most popular?
Nickolaus peaked in 1982, reaching #1150 nationally. See the whole 1982 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Nikolaos to Nickolaus
The story of Nickolaus
Much of Europe still gives presents on the saint's day rather than at Christmas. In the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria and a good deal of central Europe the sixth of December is when children get something — shoes left out the night before, a figure in a bishop's mitre rather than a red suit, and in some places a considerably more alarming companion who deals with the badly behaved. The American arrangement, which moved the gift-giving to the twenty-fifth and merged the bishop with a folkloric winter figure, is the outlier rather than the original.
Meaning
victory of the people
Two Greek elements and both are transparent. The compound was an ordinary Greek name centuries before the saint made it a Christian one, and no spelling touches the sense.
How the name formed
- Nikolaos
- Nikolaus
- Nickolaus
Related forms: Nikolaus · Nikolaos · Nikolai
Pronouncing Nickolaus
NIK-uh-lus
Three syllables with the stress at the front. The German form puts it there too but gives the ending a fuller vowel than English does.
Nicknames for Nickolaus
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
- 199072 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1150reached in 1982
- Change vs 2017
- −27.3%8 in 2019, from 11
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.
Nickolaus in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Nikolaus in German — same name
- Nikolaos in Greek — same name
- Nikolai in Russian — same name
Nickolauss among us
people named Nickolaus 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
Nickolaus 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
- Nick and Klaus both sit inside it as short forms with different characters.
- The name underneath is among the most widely used in the world.
- The spelling is distinctive without containing anything difficult.
- Nicholas and Nikolaus are both standard and this gets corrected to both.
- It is long, and most people will use the short form immediately.
- The ck belongs to neither of the name's own languages.
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Nickolaus
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Nickolauss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,700 people named Nickolaus are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Nickolaus in 2025?
- Nickolaus is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Nickolaus with classmates?
- Nickolaus 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 Nickolaus? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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