Nicol
Feminine · “Greek "victory of the people”
Nicol is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,220 girls against 28 boys since 1880.
Nicol looks like Nicole with a letter missing, and in 1970 that is mostly what it was. But it is also a genuine medieval English name: Nicol was the ordinary spoken form of Nicholas in Middle English, the form that produced the surnames Nicol, Nicholls and Nixon. The girls' name and the medieval man's name are the same five letters arrived at from opposite directions.
How old is the name Nicol?
Nicol first appears in US birth records in 1956 — 69 years ago. The typical Nicol alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 2,100 people named Nicol are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Nicol most popular?
Nicol peaked in 1970, reaching #997 nationally. Today it ranks #6838, 5,841 places below that high. See the whole 1970 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Nikolaos to Nicol
The story of Nicol
English lost the final unstressed vowel of Nicolas early and stressed the first syllable, giving Nicol, which is why the surnames exist at all and why Colin — a diminutive of Nicol — is a separate name today. French kept the vowel and later feminised the whole name into Nicole, which crossed into America in the 1940s and became a top-ten name by the 1970s. Nicol without the e appears in the female column at exactly the moment Nicole was at its height, which makes a clipped spelling far more likely than a medieval revival.
Meaning
Greek "victory of the people"
From Greek Nikolaos, nike "victory" plus laos "people". The etymology is not in doubt for any member of this family — Nicholas, Nicole, Nicola, Nikolai, Colin and Nicol all trace to the same compound. What is uncertain about the modern girls' Nicol is only whether a particular bearer is a shortened Nicole or an independent choice.
How the name formed
- Nikolaos
- Nicholas
- Nicol
- Nicole
- Nicol
Related forms: Nicole · Nicoletta · Nichol · Nikol
Pronouncing Nicol
nih-KOHL
In modern use it is said exactly like Nicole — the silent e was never doing any work. The medieval English name stressed the first syllable, NIK-ol, and that pronunciation survives only in the Scottish surname.
Nicknames for Nicol
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
- 1956
- Most girls named
- 1970125 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #997reached in 1970
- Change vs 2024
- −27.3%16 in 2025, from 22
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.
Nicol in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Nicole in French — related form
- Nicoletta in Italian — related form
- Nichol in Scots — spelling variant
- Nikol in Czech — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Nicols among us
people named Nicol are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 100,454 born in 2025 was named Nicol
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Nicol
- #6838
- Nicol on the 2025 chart
- #933
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Nicol went to 16 girls in 2025, but Nikol is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 27, which makes it the 933rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,905 places above the chart.
- Nicol16
- Nikol11
About 1 girl in 59,528 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 100,454 for Nicol itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Ailene test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Nicol's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ailene climbed just as high around 1926, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ailene's path sketches the road Nicol is walking now.
Nicol sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Nicol beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Nicol in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It sounds completely standard while looking uncommon on paper.
- The etymology is one of the best documented in European naming.
- It shares its whole nickname set with Nicole, so nothing has to be invented.
- It will be read as a typo for Nicole by almost everyone who sees it written first.
- In Scotland and northern England it is primarily a surname, and a man's name historically.
- Nicol, Nikol and Nichol are all in use, so the spelling has to be given every time.
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What they receive
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Nicol
Feminine · #6838 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Nicols are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,100 people named Nicol are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Nicol?
- Nicol is the most-used spelling in US records — 16 of the 27 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Nikol.
- How popular is the name Nicol in 2025?
- Nicol ranks #6838 among US girl names in 2025, with 16 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Nicol?
- About 1 in every 100,454 US girls born in 2025 was named Nicol — 16 in all.
- Will my child share the name Nicol with classmates?
- Nicol will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Nicol
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malana#6838 · Jeannie#6838 · Maxie#6838 · Chaney#6838 · Keana#6838 · Concetta#6838 · Camia#6838 · Pheobe#6838
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Nicol? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Nicol and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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