Niek
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/nik/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Niek is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country. Recorded meaning: To sink, go under.
- NLNetherlands1 in 1.8K(measured from records)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 32K
- CHSwitzerland≈1 in 294K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Netherlands (measured from records)
- Sources
- 129 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.8K (inferred from the name graph)
9,824 people
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
To sink, go under
Sources 1
- Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Niek counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | #211 | 9,824 | 1 in 1.8K | 9.8K | Niek | 129 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈580 est. | ≈1 in 459K | — | Niek | 32 |
| BE Belgium | — | ≈370 est. | ≈1 in 32K | — | Niek | 43 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 645K | 2 | Niek | 42 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 467K | — | Niek | 6 |
| CH Switzerland | — | ≈29 est. | ≈1 in 294K | — | Niek | 6 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈21 est. | ≈1 in 415K | — | Niek | 6 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈3 est. | ≈1 in 352K | listed | — | 1 |
9,824 people counted by Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); the de-duesseldorf-vornamen register; the ee-siseministeerium-registry register. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Niek is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Maltese, to fuck; to screw
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In och, To sink, go under
as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
In Khmer, strong; supreme; superior; pure
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In Khmer, n, a name of the Buddha
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In Khmer, n, elephant
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Niek Michelb. 1912NLDutch footballer (1912-1971)
- Niek van Dijkb. 1951NLDutch orthopaedic surgeon
- Niek Vossebeltb. 1991NLDutch footballer
- Niek Versteegb. 1993GBBritish actor
- Niek te Veluweb. 1993NLfootball player
- Niek Versteegenb. 1994NLassociation football player
- Niek Kimmannb. 1996NLDutch BMX racing cyclist
- Niek Roozenb. 1997NLDutch actor
- Niek van der Veldenb. 2000NLDutch snowboarder
- Niek Traaactor
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 15 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 9.8K | #226 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 8.7K | #446 |
| NL Netherlands | SVB Kindernamen — annual newborn name frequency (Wayback-recovered) | 2017 | 192 | #85 |
| NL Netherlands | SVB Kindernamen — annual newborn name frequency (Wayback-recovered) | 2016 | 182 | #89 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 38 | #9,957 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 8 | #32,545 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2018 | 2 | — |
| EE Estonia | Siseministeerium — population register name list 2023 | 2023 | — | — |
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 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Niek mean, and where does it come from?
- To sink, go under Recorded by Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007).
- Is Niek a male or female name?
- Niek 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 are other forms of the name Niek?
- In the etymology graph, Nicolas, Nicholas and Kay are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Nicolaas and Nikolaas.
- How do you pronounce Niek?
- A machine transcription gives /nik/ (IPA) for Dutch.
- In which country does Niek have the most bearers?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 9.8 thousand people named Niek, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled niek.
- Where is Niek most common?
- Niek is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 1.8 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Niek?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 9,824 people named Niek, about 1 in 1.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Niek compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Niek is the 211th most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Niek?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/niekThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
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, “Niek” — the 211th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.