Nicolae

given name · Hungarian · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Nicolae is a given name, most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is the 14th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Hungarian and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Nicholas.

rarermore common
  • RORomania1 in 29◐
  • UAUkraine1 in 36
  • GRGreece1 in 37

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈2.3M ●

across 13 countries

#19 ●

of 16M given names

7 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
582 ●

24M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 37 ◐

Greece

Spellings & scripts●

НиколайCyrillic · Russian●18M records
NicolasLatin · Spanish●6.5M records
ΝικολαοςGreek · Greek●866K records
ᲜიკოლოზGeorgian · Georgian●95K records
นิโคลัสThai · Thai●547 records
ՆիկոլայArmenian · Armenian●14 records
니콜라스Hangul · Korean●2 records

11 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Nicolas in AR Argentina, BR Brazil, FR France and 9 more, Nicholas in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 2 more, Николай in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan, TR Türkiye and 1 more and Микола in UA Ukraine.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Nicholas

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Nicolae is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
RU Russia#1417,190,4334.2M rec.—#2Николай235
UA Ukraine#78,658,0688.6M rec.—listedМикола147
AR Argentina#114,991,9332.2M rec.—4.3KNicolas210
RO Romania#81,082,53423K rec.—349KNicolae131
GB United Kingdom#38830,092546K rec.—6Nicholas314
US United States#100710,3704.7M rec.1 in 468710KNicholas582
AU Australia#38421,863280K rec.—124Nicholas308
FR France#12406,1451.3M rec.1 in 167406KNicolas462
BR Brazil#142310,593△137K rec.1 in 682311KNicolas193
GR Greece#4290,329△14K rec.1 in 37570KNikolaos193
CL Chile#64277,53433K rec.—820Nicolas178
MX Mexico#189269,045288K rec.—1Nicolas205

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Hungarian698K58%
  • English358K30%
  • Romanian95K8%
  • Spanish27K2%
  • French8.4K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Hungarian697,64658%
English357,58930%
Romanian95,4248%
Spanish26,6312%
French8,3581%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Nicolae is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name16K records spelled Nicolae5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Spain, Belgium, Romania

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Nicolaë, Nicolaé, Nicoläe

  • Danish given name1.7K records spelled Nicolae7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Norway, Romania, United States

    Languages: Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Swedish

    Also written Ñícolæ, Ñícolae

  • Bulgarian given name848 records spelled Nicolae15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, Romania, Spain, Bulgaria

    Languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovenian

    Also written Николае, Nikolae, Ницолае

43 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Nicolae is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Latin, vocative singular of Nīcolāus

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

010020030020002005201020152020

Show as table
Nicolae in SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023), Sweden, 1999–2020
Yearrecords
199986
200087
200186
200287
200389
200488
200591
200691
2007122
2008141
2009151
2010167
2011170
2012182
2013191
2014198
2015207
2016226
2017243
2018257
2019263
2020269

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1750180018501900Nikolay Karamzin, b. 1766Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, b. 1792Nicholas I of Russia, b. 1796Nikolai Gogol, b. 1809Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov, b. 1821Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia, b. 1856Nicholas II of Russia, b. 1868Nicolas Roerich, b. 1874Korney Chukovsky, b. 1882Nikolaj Ivanovič Vavilov, b. 1887

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 60 sources across 31 countries.

Official registers attesting Nicolae
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
RO RomaniaDEPABD — name-day population snapshot2009349K—
RO RomaniaDEPABD — resident population names2009349K—
MD Moldovae-services.md — living population register—44K#21
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—4.1K#462
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—3.8K#1,093
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20)20261.5K#405
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—1.3K#411
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20201.3K#10,260
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—1.1K#4,024
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—1.1K#4,023
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—596#2,234
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—486#2,836

Reference works 5

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 157 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Nicolae?
We estimate roughly 2.3 million people bear Nicolae (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.
In which country does Nicolae have the most bearers?
Nicolae is most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is most often spelled николай.
How common is Nicolae compared with other names?
In Russia, Nicolae is the 14th most common given name of 418,751 given names recorded there.
Is Nicolae a male or female name?
Nicolae is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Nicolae mean?
Recorded meaning: a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Nicholas
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/nicolae

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Nicolae” — the 14th most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Nicolae parses inside a full name →