Nikiforov
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Nikephoros, from nike victory + phorein to carry, bear)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɲicifɔɹɑv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Nikiforov is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Russia than in any other country.
- BGBulgaria≈1 in 24K(inferred from the name graph)
- RURussia≈1 in 3Kas Никифоров
- UAUkraine≈1 in 20Kas Нікіфоров
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Nikiforov itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Russia (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 165 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 12K (inferred from the name graph)
≈47,000 named Никифоров, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Estonia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Никифоров in RU Russia, BY Belarus, CN China and 2 more and Нікіфоров in UA Ukraine.
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)
Nikephoros, from nike victory + phorein to carry, bear). Although of pagan origin, the name was popular among early Christians in allusion to Christ’s victory over Death, and was borne in particular by a (possibly fictional) 3rd-cent. martyr of Antioch, as well as various other early saints who helped to make the name a popular one in E Europe.
Sources 1
- The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nikiforov 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #239 | ≈47,000 est. | ≈1 in 3K | — | Никифоров | 165 |
| UA Ukraine | — | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Нікіфоров | 44 |
| BY Belarus | #533 | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 7K | — | Никифоров | 20 |
| CN China | — | ≈720 est. | ≈1 in 1.9M | — | Никифоров | 4 |
| UZ Uzbekistan | — | ≈650 est. | ≈1 in 47K | — | Никифоров | 6 |
| BG Bulgaria | #589 | ≈300 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Nikiforov | 49 |
| US United States | — | 212 | 1 in 1.6M | 227 | Nikiforov | 117 |
| EE Estonia | #126 | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 12K | 242 | Никифоров | 16 |
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; the ee-stat-nimed 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Pyotr Nikiforovb. 1882RUSoviet politician (1882-1974)
- Viktor Nikiforovb. 1931RURussian ice hockey player (1931–1989)
- Maria Nichiforovb. 1951ROnot in their usual nameCanoe racer
- Oleksandr Nikiforovb. 1967UAUkrainian footballer
- Yuriy Nikiforovb. 1970UARussian/Ukrainian association football player
- Denis Nikiforovb. 1977RURussian actor
- Nikolai Nikiforovb. 1982RURussian politician
- Amina Okuevab. 1983UAnot in their usual nameUkrainian surgeon and servicewoman, People's hero of Ukraine
- Vladislav Nikiforovb. 1989RURussian footballer
- Toma Nikiforovb. 1993BEBelgian judoka
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 27 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 242 | #209 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 227 | #87,947 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 212 | #87,663 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 118 | #132,259 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 14 | #8,105 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Nikiforov mean, and where does it come from?
- Nikephoros, from nike victory + phorein to carry, bear). Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
- How do you pronounce Nikiforov?
- A machine transcription gives /ɲicifɔɹɑv/ (IPA) for Russian.
- In which country does Nikiforov have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 47 thousand people named Никифоров in Russia, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Nikiforov?
- In the United States, the national register counted 212 people named Nikiforov in 2010, about 1 in 1.6 million residents.
- How common is Nikiforov compared with other names?
- In Russia, Nikiforov is the 239th most common surname of 1,952,411 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Nikiforov?
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/nikiforovThe 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, “Nikiforov” — the 239th most common surname in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.