Nicole

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Nicole boys named Nicole

By the numbers

Total US births

596,465

Estimated living today

576,000

Median age today

39

Peak year

1985

Best rank

7th

Rank in 2025

382nd

First recorded

1937

Girls / boys

594,500 / 1,965

How old the living Nicoles are

born that year still alive today

Of the 596,465 babies given the name since 1937, about 576,000 are alive — 97 in every hundred. Roughly 34,000 of them are children and 1,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1986 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Ancient Greek

the feminine form of Nicolas (“Nicholas”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Nicoles

• Nicole Kidman (born 1967)Australian-American actress, producer, and model
• Nicole Scherzinger (born 1978)American singer and actress
• Anna Nicole Smith (1967–2007)American actress and television personality
• Nicole Oresme (1320–1382)14th century French philosopher and bishop
• Nicole (born 1964)German schlager singer
• Nicole Anderson (born 1990)American actress
• Nicole Richie (born 1981)American television personality and actress
• Nicole Vaidisova (born 1989)Czech tennis player

People named Nicole with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Nicole is most common

• CA75,779
• NY63,782
• PA36,536
• IL34,614
• NJ28,623
• MI28,282
• FL27,919
• OH27,389
• TX26,807
• MA20,493

Relative to how many babies each state records, Nicole is most concentrated in New Jersey (1.7×), New Hampshire (1.6×), Nevada (1.6×), Connecticut (1.6×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1985

The most popular girls’ names the year Nicole peaked:

• Jessica
• Ashley
• Jennifer
• Amanda
• Sarah
• Stephanie

All the names of 1985

Nicole elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Nicole: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Nicole is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.61% of children were given it – 381 of them.

Nicole: rank by region

In 2025, Nicole was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.

In 2024, Nicole was among the 10 most common names in 3 regions of Italy.

In 2025, Nicole was given 2 times or more in 11 regions of Poland.

In 2023, with the country taken in 5 parts rather than 21, Nicole appears in the lists for Isole (10th).

In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Nicole appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (132nd).

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Nicole by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Nicole among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Nicole lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 6,420 women called Nicole were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 51 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 1 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Nicholas
• Nicolas
• Nichole
• Nick
• Nickolas
• Nico
• Nicolette
• Nicky
• Nicola
• Nicki
• Nicolle
• Nichelle

Nicole against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Nicole vs Nicholas
• Nicole vs Nicolas
• Nicole vs Nichole
• Nicole vs Nick
• Nicole vs Nickolas
• Nicole vs Nico

Compare Nicole with a name of your own