Nienke
given name · Western Frisian · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nienke is a given name, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country. It appears chiefly in Western Frisian and Dutch, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a diminutive of the female given name Catharina.
- NLNetherlands1 in 1.3K◐
- BEBelgium1 in 18K
- SESweden1 in 329K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈14K ●
- Sources
- 93 ●
- 1 in 1.3K ◐
across 5 countries
9.3K records
Official registry-verified
Netherlands
Meaning & origin●
a diminutive of the female given name Catharina
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 23 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | #294 | 13,707 | 6.9K rec. | 1 in 1.3K | 14K | Nienke | 93 |
| BE Belgium | — | 850 | 170 rec. | — | 7 | Nienke | 25 |
| US United States | — | 404 | 1.2K rec. | — | 157 | Nienke | 69 |
| FR France | — | 202 | 181 rec. | — | — | Nienke | 56 |
| DE Germany | — | 169 | 223 rec. | — | 1 | Nienke | 42 |
| BR Brazil | — | 135 | 23 rec. | — | 105 | Nienke | 21 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 111 | 117 rec. | — | — | Nienke | 20 |
| AU Australia | — | 102 | 96 rec. | — | — | Nienke | 23 |
| ES Spain | — | 98 | 92 rec. | — | — | Nienke | 12 |
| FI Finland | — | 46 | 10 rec. | — | 36 | Nienke | 2 |
| NO Norway | — | 39 | 6 rec. | — | 34 | Nienke | 5 |
| ZA South Africa | — | 39 | 35 rec. | — | — | Nienke | 8 |
Roughly 14K people in Netherlands bear this name (about 1 in 1.3K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Western Frisian26K39%
- Dutch22K32%
- English16K23%
- German9881%
- French4751%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Western Frisian | 26,222 | 39% |
| Dutch | 21,954 | 32% |
| English | 15,722 | 23% |
| German | 988 | 1% |
| French | 475 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1995 | 8 |
| 1996 | 9 |
| 1997 | 14 |
| 1998 | 10 |
| 1999 | 16 |
| 2000 | 18 |
| 2001 | 20 |
| 2002 | 23 |
| 2003 | 24 |
| 2004 | 22 |
| 2005 | 35 |
| 2006 | 28 |
| 2007 | 26 |
| 2008 | 33 |
| 2009 | 53 |
| 2010 | 42 |
| 2011 | 48 |
| 2012 | 40 |
| 2013 | 43 |
| 2014 | 20 |
| 2015 | 23 |
| 2016 | 18 |
| 2017 | 15 |
| 2018 | 13 |
| 2019 | 11 |
| 2020 | 8 |
| 2021 | 8 |
| 2022 | 7 |
| 2024 | 7 |
BE Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) — 29 years between 1995–2024. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Nienke van Hichtumb. 1860NLFrisian Dutch children's author (1860–1939)
- Nienke Brinkhuisb. 1971NLDutch actor and film actor
- Nienke Römerb. 1975NLDutch actor, television actor and film actor
- Nienke Hommesb. 1977NLDutch rower
- Nienke Kingmab. 1982NLDutch rower
- Nienke van Dijkb. 1991NLDutch presenter
- Nienke Brinkmanb. 1993NLDutch marathon runner
- Nienke Veenhovenb. 2004NLDutch cyclist
- Nienke Vinkeb. 2004NLDutch cyclist
- Nienke OomesUSeconomist (SEO Economisch Onderzoek)
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 27 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 14K | #165 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 13K | #312 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 157 | #117,309 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 155 | #106,477 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 148 | #117,480 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 105 | #61,079 |
| NL Netherlands | SVB Kindernamen — annual newborn name frequency (Wayback-recovered) | 2017 | 101 | #139 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2009 | 53 | #206 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2011 | 48 | #221 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2013 | 43 | #253 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2010 | 42 | #259 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2012 | 40 | #268 |
Reference works 2
- 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 · 87 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Nienke?
- We estimate roughly 14 thousand people bear Nienke (counting its spellings and scripts) across 5 countries in our records.
- In which country does Nienke have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 14 thousand people bear Nienke in the Netherlands, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled nienke.
- Where is Nienke most common?
- Nienke is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 1.3 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is Nienke compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Nienke is the 294th most common given name of 134,847 given names recorded there.
- Is Nienke a male or female name?
- Nienke is a female 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 Nienke mean?
- Recorded meaning: a diminutive of the female given name Catharina
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/nienkeThe 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
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, “Nienke” — the 294th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.