Nikola
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Czech: a male given name, equivalent to English Nicholas
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/nǐkola/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Nikola is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Serbia than in any other country. In Czechia it is the 94th most common given name.
- RSSerbia≈1 in 77(inferred from the name graph)
- CZCzechia1 in 141
- PLPoland1 in 482
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 Nikola 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.
- Serbia (inferred from the name graph)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 125 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 77 (inferred from the name graph)
≈91,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Serbia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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 female given name, equivalent to English Nicole
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
How Nikola is read(measured from records)
Nikola is one spelling over 6 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Croatian54%
m., f. lično ime
as a wordrecorded as Serbo-CroatianSkok, Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (1971-74)
- Czech24%
a male given name, equivalent to English Nicholas
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Polish24%
a female given name, equivalent to English Nicole
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English12%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Nikola in English.
- Bulgarian8.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Nikola in Bulgarian.
- German5.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Nikola in German.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nikola 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RS Serbia | #279 | ≈91,000 est. | ≈1 in 77 | listed | Nikola | 23 |
| PL Poland | #283 | 79,453 | 1 in 482 | 79K | Nikola | 104 |
| CZ Czechia | #94 | 75,992 | 1 in 141 | 76K | Nikola | 125 |
| BG Bulgaria | — | 37,057as Никола | 1 in 188 | 37K | — | — |
| HR Croatia | — | 32,304 | 1 in 131 | 32K | — | — |
| MK North Macedonia | #156 | 14,665as Никола | 1 in 145 | 15K | Nikola | 7 |
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: dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names); MVČR — living population register 2017; NSI — most common given names (population); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); State Statistical Office — living population names. 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)
Nikola is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, Nikola (Nicola) är en romansk form av → Nikolaus. Namnet ges även till flickor som en variant av → Nicole. En känd namnbärare är uppfinnaren Nikola Tesla (1856–1943).
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In Russian, de niké, victoire et 105, peuple.
as a nameRussian Names
In Russian, dim of Nikolai.
as a wordA Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)
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)
- Nikola Teslab. 1856HRSerbian-American engineer and inventor (1856–1943)
- Nikola Špirićb. 1956BAChairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2007 to 2012
- Nikola Gruevskib. 1970MKFormer politician from North Macedonia
- Nikola Žigićb. 1980RSSerbian footballer
- Nikola Pekovićb. 1986MEMontenegrin basketball player
- Nikola Kalinićb. 1988HRCroatian association football player
- Nikola Kalinićb. 1991RSSerbian basketball player (born 1991)
- Nikola Mirotićb. 1991MESpanish/Montenegrin basketball player
- Nikola Jokićb. 1995RSSerbian basketball player (born 1995)
- Ewa Swobodab. 1997PLnot in their usual namePolish sprinter
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 91 sources across 42 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 79K | #73 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 79K | #73 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 76K | #66 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 38K | #75 |
| BG Bulgaria | NSI — most common given names (population) | 2018 | 37K | #17 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 32K | #14 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Učestalost osobnih imena (Popis 2021) | 2021 | 27K | — |
| PL Poland | Ministry of Digitalization — Imiona nadawane dzieciom w Polsce (2000–present) | 2025 | 623 | — |
| BG Bulgaria | NSI — newborn names (press release) | 2018 | 598 | #5 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 412 | #790 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 387 | #783 |
Reference works 7
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- Is Nikola a male or female name?
- Nikola is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- Where does the name Nikola come from?
- a female given name, equivalent to English Nicole Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Nikola?
- A machine transcription gives /nǐkola/ (IPA) for Croatian.
- In which country does Nikola have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 91 thousand people named Nikola in Serbia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nikola.
- How common is the name Nikola?
- In Poland, the national register counted 79,453 people named Nikola in 2026, about 1 in 482 residents.
- How common is Nikola compared with other names?
- In Serbia, Nikola is the 279th most common given name of 10,960 given names recorded there.
- What does the name Nikola mean?
- In Czech, a male given name, equivalent to English Nicholas
- What are other forms of the name Nikola?
- In the etymology graph, Nicola, Nikolay and Nikolai are forms of the same name in other languages; Nik, Nikica and Nikša are recorded short or pet forms.
What do you want to know about Nikola?
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/nikolaThe 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, “Nikola” — the 279th most common given name in Serbia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.