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Nikki vs Nikola

American parents have registered 41,005 Nikkis since 1880, against 4,102 Nikolas. But in 2025 it was Nikola that was commoner, 109 babies to 44.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Nikki against Nikola, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Nikki Nikola

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 98 years in which either name was published, Nikki for 87 years and Nikola for 11 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Nikki Nikola
Total US births 41,0054,102
Most in one year 1,736159
Babies in 2025 44109
Estimated living today 38,0004,000
Median age today 4314
Peak year 19722020
Best rank 173rd girls1,237th boys
Rank in 2025 3,459th1,644th
First recorded 19251948
Girls / boys 40,109 / 896658 / 3,444

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Nikkis alive today are over 43; half the Nikolas are over 14. That is 29 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Nikki Nikola
Poland 274,011
England and Wales 8612,108
France 951,600
Scotland 1,247181
Belgium 355181
Ireland 56390
Northern Ireland 3573

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Nikki and Nikola.