Nikolay
given name · Bulgarian · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nikolay is a given name, most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is the 14th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Bulgarian and English, written in the Latin script.
- 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 ●
- #19 ●
- 7 ●
- Sources
- 582 ●
- 1 in 37 ◐
across 13 countries
of 16M given names
recorded for this name
24M records
Official registry-verified
Greece
Spellings & scripts●
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
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Sources 1
Attested across 17 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #14 | 17,190,433 | 4.2M rec. | — | #2 | Николай | 235 |
| UA Ukraine | #7 | 8,658,068 | 8.6M rec. | — | listed | Микола | 147 |
| AR Argentina | #11 | 4,991,933 | 2.2M rec. | — | 4.3K | Nicolas | 210 |
| RO Romania | #8 | 1,082,534 | 23K rec. | — | 349K | Nicolae | 131 |
| GB United Kingdom | #38 | 830,092 | 546K rec. | — | 6 | Nicholas | 314 |
| US United States | #100 | 710,370 | 4.7M rec. | 1 in 468 | 710K | Nicholas | 582 |
| AU Australia | #38 | 421,863 | 280K rec. | — | 124 | Nicholas | 308 |
| FR France | #12 | 406,145 | 1.3M rec. | 1 in 167 | 406K | Nicolas | 462 |
| BR Brazil | #142 | 310,593△ | 137K rec. | 1 in 682 | 311K | Nicolas | 193 |
| GR Greece | #4 | 290,329△ | 14K rec. | 1 in 37 | 570K | Nikolaos | 193 |
| CL Chile | #64 | 277,534 | 33K rec. | — | 820 | Nicolas | 178 |
| MX Mexico | #189 | 269,045 | 288K rec. | — | 5 | Nicolas | 205 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Bulgarian806K79%
- English112K11%
- Russian55K5%
- Spanish9.6K1%
- German4.3K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Bulgarian | 805,586 | 79% |
| English | 111,821 | 11% |
| Russian | 55,169 | 5% |
| Spanish | 9,640 | 1% |
| German | 4,342 | 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 |
|---|---|
| 1959 | 4 |
| 1960 | 4 |
| 1962 | 4 |
| 1964 | 4 |
| 1965 | 6 |
| 1969 | 4 |
| 1972 | 4 |
| 1976 | 4 |
| 1978 | 14 |
| 1979 | 6 |
| 1980 | 5 |
| 1981 | 10 |
| 1982 | 5 |
| 1983 | 6 |
| 1986 | 5 |
| 1987 | 7 |
| 1989 | 8 |
| 1990 | 10 |
| 1991 | 5 |
| 1992 | 5 |
| 1994 | 4 |
| 1995 | 7 |
| 1996 | 5 |
| 1997 | 4 |
| 1998 | 6 |
| 1999 | 12 |
| 2000 | 5 |
| 2001 | 6 |
| 2002 | 12 |
| 2003 | 11 |
| 2004 | 7 |
| 2005 | 13 |
| 2006 | 12 |
| 2007 | 9 |
| 2008 | 8 |
| 2009 | 10 |
| 2010 | 8 |
| 2011 | 10 |
| 2012 | 5 |
| 2013 | 4 |
| 2015 | 7 |
| 2016 | 6 |
| 2017 | 9 |
| 2018 | 5 |
| 2019 | 5 |
NO SSB — Navn (1880–present) — 45 years between 1959–2019. 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. 1766RURussian 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. 1821UARussian 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 60 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.7K | #4,078 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 1.5K | #111 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 1.4K | #2,256 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 1.3K | #1,006 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 1.2K | #1,467 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 739 | #1,737 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 546 | #661 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 518 | #660 |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register) | — | 483 | — |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 370 | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 205 | #5,153 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 172 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 · 436 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Nikolay?
- We estimate roughly 2.3 million people bear Nikolay (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.
- In which country does Nikolay have the most bearers?
- Nikolay is most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is most often spelled николай.
- How common is Nikolay compared with other names?
- In Russia, Nikolay is the 14th most common given name of 418,751 given names recorded there.
- Is Nikolay a male or female name?
- Nikolay 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.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/nikolayThe 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, “Nikolay” — the 14th most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.