Nikolajs
given name · Latin script
Meaning: a male given name from Ancient Greek
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nikolajs is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Latvia than in any other country.
- LVLatvia1 in 236(measured from records)
- RURussia≈1 in 531Kas Николайс
- ISIceland1 in 44K
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 Nikolajs 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.
- Latvia (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 50 (measured from records)
- 1 in 236 (inferred from the name graph)
7,985 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Latvia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Николайс in LV Latvia, RU Russia.
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
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nikolajs 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.
7,985 people counted by PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register), counting the spelling nikolajs. 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: PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); 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)
Nikolajs is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Latvian, kristietības mitoloģiskajā tradīcijā un leģendās — svētais no baznīcas patriarhu vidus, kurš esot dzīvojis 4. gs. pirmajā pusē, cīnījies par taisnību, palīdzējis jūrasbraucējiem un slīcējiem; Nikolajs Brīnumdaris
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, saka, lai pateiktu, ka kaut kas ir pilnīgi vienaldzīgs
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Monēta ar Krievijas cara Nikolaja gravīru
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Vīrieša vārds
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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).
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 18 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register) | — | 8K | — |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup) | — | 7.9K | #52 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 41 | #15,473 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 39 | #4,008 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 34 | #38,338 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 32 | #4,230 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 25 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2019 | 23 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2017 | 23 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2018 | 22 | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 20 | #27,171 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2016 | 20 | — |
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 Nikolajs mean, and where does it come from?
- a male given name from Ancient Greek Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Nikolajs?
- In the etymology graph, Nicolas, Nicholas and Nick are forms of the same name in other languages.
- Is Nikolajs a male or female name?
- Nikolajs 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.
- In which country does Nikolajs have the most bearers?
- In Latvia, the national register counted about 8.0 thousand people named Nikolajs, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled николайс.
- Where is Nikolajs most common?
- Nikolajs is densest in Latvia, where the national register counts about 1 in 236 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Nikolajs?
- In Latvia, the national register counted 7,985 people named Nikolajs, about 1 in 236 residents.
- How common is Nikolajs compared with other names?
- In Latvia, Nikolajs is the 272nd most common given name of 11,601 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Nikolajs?
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/nikolajsThe 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, “Nikolajs” — the 272nd most common given name in Latvia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.