girls:
645 births since 1948
#5071 (11th percentile)
boys:
3.2k births since 1960
#2197 (52nd percentile)
overall:
3.9k births since 1948
#4417 (43rd percentile)
The name Nikola is the #4,417 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 3,875 recorded births since 1948. This represents the 42.9% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 42.9% of all names). For boys, it ranks #2,197 (52.1% percentile) for all time with 3,230 births since 1960. For girls, it ranks #5,071 (11.3% percentile) for all time with 645 births since 1948.
Nikola first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1948 (1948 for girls and 1960 for boys). Birth data for Nikola is available in 64 out of the 76 years between 1948 and 2023 (61 years for boys and 59 years for girls). The Social Security Administration only reports birth data for years in which the name was given to at least five children of the same gender.
The name Nikola has been given predominantly to boys, with 83.4% of all recorded births being male. In 2023, 95.3% of babies named Nikola were boys. Interestingly, until around 1960, the name was more popular for girls (100.0% girls from 1948 to 1959), but since then it has been more commonly used for boys (83.5% boys from 1960 to 2023).
For boys, Nikola reached its peak popularity in 2020, achieving the 16.2% percentile (ranked #755) with 82 births per million. The name was most common in 2020, with 82 births per million (ranked 16.2% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2006, the popularity of this name for boys has been increasing. Currently, Nikola ranks #793 for boys (13.0% percentile) with 67 births per million, which is 82.3% of its peak share of births.
For girls, Nikola reached its peak popularity in 1972, achieving the 2.0% percentile (ranked #728) with 12 births per million. The name was most common in 1972, with 12 births per million (ranked 2.0% percentile). Since reaching a high point in 2019, the popularity of this name for girls has been declining. Currently, Nikola ranks #946 for girls (0.1% percentile) with 3 births per million, which is 27.7% of its peak share of births.
This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Nikola".
These names exclude other spelling variations of Nicola. View all variations of Nicola.
These similar-looking names have spellings that are closest to the spelling of "Nikola", in the sense that there are the fewest number of letter differences between the two spellings. This list excludes the 12 other name spellings that we've determined are also variations of "Nicola" based on shared pronunciations. Click here for more details on names that are pronounced like Nicola..
Our model has identified 5 different pronunciations for the name Nikola. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.
Our model is 36.4% confident that Nikola is pronounced as NIH-kuh-luh, which has 3 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is nih-KOH-luh, at 31.8% confidence, with 3 syllables.
If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Nikola? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Nikola. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Nikola, please vote using the thumbs up button.
Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.
For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.
The raw pronunciations shown (like N IH1 K AH0 L AH0) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.
Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.
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