Nikolajs
given name · Latvian · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nikolajs is a given name, with more bearers in Latvia than in any other country. It appears chiefly in Latvian and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a male given name from Ancient Greek.
- LVLatvia1 in 236◐
- RURussia1 in 550K
- ISIceland1 in 44K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈8.1K ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 43 ●
- 1 in 236 ◐
across 6 countries
recorded for this name
853 records
Official registry-verified
Latvia
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Николайс in LV Latvia, RU Russia, FI Finland and 2 more and Nikolais 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
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 19 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LV Latvia | #455 | 7,985△ | 38 rec. | 1 in 236 | 8K | Николайс | 12 |
| RU Russia | — | 1,857 | 791 rec. | — | — | Николайс | 43 |
| TR Türkiye | — | 54 | 0 rec. | — | — | Николайс | 1 |
| SE Sweden | — | 41 | — | 1 in 249K | 41 | — | — |
| PL Poland | — | 39 | — | 1 in 982K | 39 | — | — |
| ES Spain | — | 34 | 0 rec. | 1 in 1.5M | 34 | — | 1 |
| EE Estonia | — | 31 | 0 rec. | — | 25 | Николайс | 1 |
| UA Ukraine | — | 15 | 15 rec. | — | — | Nikolais | 1 |
| DK Denmark | — | 11 | — | 1 in 534K | 11 | — | — |
| FI Finland | — | 9 | 0 rec. | — | 143 | Николайс | 1 |
| IS Iceland | — | 8 | — | 1 in 44K | 8 | — | — |
| NO Norway | — | — | — | — | 158 | — | — |
Roughly 8K people in Latvia bear this name (about 1 in 236). 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●
- Latvian11K87%
- English3803%
- Polish1711%
- Finnish1671%
- Norwegian Bokmål1581%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Latvian | 10,758 | 87% |
| English | 380 | 3% |
| Polish | 171 | 1% |
| Finnish | 167 | 1% |
| Norwegian Bokmål | 158 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Nikolajs is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Latvian, kristietības mitoloģiskajā tradīcijā un leģendās — svētais no baznīcas patriarhu vidus, kurš esot dzīvojis 4. gs. pirmajā pusē, cīnījies par taisnību, palīdzējis jūrasbraucējiem un slīcējiem; Nikolajs Brīnumdaris
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, saka, lai pateiktu, ka kaut kas ir pilnīgi vienaldzīgs
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Monēta ar Krievijas cara Nikolaja gravīru
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Vīrieša vārds
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 10 |
| 2011 | 10 |
| 2012 | 11 |
| 2013 | 15 |
| 2014 | 16 |
| 2015 | 17 |
| 2016 | 20 |
| 2017 | 23 |
| 2018 | 22 |
| 2019 | 23 |
| 2020 | 25 |
SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 11 years between 2010–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Nikolay Karamzinb. 1766RUnot in their usual nameRussian writer, poet, critic
- Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevskyb. 1792RUnot in their usual nameRussian mathematician (1792–1856)
- Nicholas I of Russiab. 1796RUnot in their usual nameThe 11th Emperor of Russia, 1825–1855 (lived 1796-1855)
- Nikolai Gogolb. 1809UAnot in their usual nameRussian writer of Ukrainian origin (1809–1852)
- Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasovb. 1821UAnot in their usual nameRussian poet, writer, critic, editor and publisher (1821–1878)
- Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russiab. 1856RUnot in their usual nameRussian general (1856-1929); son of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich the Elder and Duchess Alexandra of Oldenburg
- Nicholas II of Russiab. 1868RUnot in their usual name14th and last Emperor of Russia (1894–1917)
- Nicolas Roerichb. 1874RUnot in their usual nameRussian painter, writer, archaeologist and philosopher (1874–1947)
- Korney Chukovskyb. 1882RUnot in their usual nameRussian children's poet (1882–1969)
- Nikolaj Ivanovič Vavilovb. 1887RUnot in their usual nameRussian (Soviet) agronomist, botanist and geneticist (1887-1943)
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 18 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register) | — | 8K | — |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup) | — | 7.9K | #52 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 158 | #5,645 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 143 | #4,220 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 41 | #15,473 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 39 | #4,008 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 34 | #38,338 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 32 | #4,230 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 25 | — |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 25 | #1,341 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2019 | 23 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2017 | 23 | — |
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 · 39 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Nikolajs?
- We estimate roughly 8.1 thousand people bear Nikolajs (counting its spellings and scripts) across 6 countries in our records.
- In which country does Nikolajs have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 8.0 thousand people bear Nikolajs in Latvia, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled николайс.
- Where is Nikolajs most common?
- Nikolajs is densest in Latvia, where the national register counts about 1 in 236 people carrying it.
- How common is Nikolajs compared with other names?
- In Latvia, Nikolajs is the 455th most common given name of 17,921 given names recorded there.
- Is Nikolajs a male or female name?
- Nikolajs 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 Nikolajs mean?
- Recorded meaning: a male given name from Ancient Greek
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/nikolajsThe 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, “Nikolajs” — the 455th most common given name in Latvia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.