Nicols

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ˈnɪkəɫz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Nicols is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Variant of Nichols.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 684K(measured from records)
  • ESSpain≈1 in 165K
  • FIFinland≈1 in 185K

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.

United States (measured from records)

486 people, 2010

Sources
182 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 165K (inferred from the name graph)

Spain, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Variant of Nichols.

Sources 2

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Nicols 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.

Where Nicols is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States4861 in 684K509Nicols182
ES Spain≈300 est.≈1 in 165K—Nicols12
GB United Kingdom≈140 est.≈1 in 482K80Nicols64
CA Canada≈93 est.≈1 in 406K—Nicols43
IT Italy≈75 est.≈1 in 834K1Nicols6
AU Australia≈74 est.≈1 in 343K2Nicols44
FI Finland≈30 est.≈1 in 185K—Nicols1
NZ New Zealand≈15 est.≈1 in 334K—Nicols14

486 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Nicols is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Mexico, United States, Spain, Peru

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Nicol'S, Nicol-S, Nícol'S

  • French surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Spain, United Kingdom

    Also written Nicol'S

  • English surname43 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, United Kingdom, Czechia

    Languages: English, Polish, Russian

    Also written Nicolls, Nichols, Nicholls, Ніколс, Николс

36 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1850190019502000Audley Dean Nicols, b. 1875Maggie Nicols, b. 1948Henry Nicols, b. 1973

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)

FormalDear Mr Nicols,
InformalHi Nicols,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 24 sources across 15 countries.

Official registers attesting Nicols
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020509#45,303
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000503#40,908
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010486#44,270
GB United KingdomSurnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register)200280#38,094
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname 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 Nicols mean, and where does it come from?
Variant of Nichols. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names and Wiktionary.
How do you pronounce Nicols?
A machine transcription gives /ˈnɪkəɫz/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Nicols have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 486 people named Nicols, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nicols.
How common is the name Nicols?
In the United States, the national register counted 486 people named Nicols in 2010, about 1 in 684 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Nicols?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/nicols

The 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, “Nicols”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Nicols parses inside a full name →