Nicolae
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nicolae is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Romania than in any other country, where it is the 18th most common given name. Recorded meaning: a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Nicholas.
- MDMoldova1 in 77(measured from records)
- RORomania≈1 in 221
- ITItaly≈1 in 13K
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.
- Romania (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 226 (measured from records)
- 1 in 77 (inferred from the name graph)
≈96,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Moldova
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Nicholas
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nicolae 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.
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: DEPABD — name-day population snapshot; e-services.md — living population register; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). 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)
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- 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(measured from records)
Attested in 61 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 1.1K | #4,024 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 1.1K | #4,023 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 24 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 14 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 14 | #111,405 |
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 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Nicolae mean, and where does it come from?
- a male given name from Ancient Greek, equivalent to English Nicholas Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Nicolae have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 96 thousand people named Nicolae in Romania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nicolae.
- Where is Nicolae most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Nicolae is densest in Moldova — about 1 in 77 people — even though Romania holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Nicolae?
- In Moldova, the national register counted 43,569 people named Nicolae, about 1 in 77 residents.
- How common is Nicolae compared with other names?
- In Romania, Nicolae is the 18th most common given name of 34,167 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 are other forms of the name Nicolae?
- In the etymology graph, Nicolas, Nicholas and Nick are forms of the same name in other languages; Nicu is a recorded short or pet form.
What do you want to know about Nicolae?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/nicolaeThe 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; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Nicolae” — the 18th most common given name in Romania. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.