Meaning not yet researched.
Nikolaus: US boys given the name each year, 1880 to 2025, from Social Security card applications. 24 in 2025. Its best rank was #1,086 in 1980.
US births per year · SSA card applications
Peaked at #1,086 in 1980; #4,346 in 2025. Every baby recorded as Nikolaus in 2025 was a boy.
Baby name · US data 1880–2025
#4,346 for US boys in 2025. Its best year was 1980, at #1,086.
Hover, tap or use the arrow keys for any year. Years with fewer than five babies of a sex are not published by SSA and show as zero.
Nikolaus: US boys given the name each year from 1880 to 2025. 24 boys in 2025. Peak: #1,086 in 1980 · most boys in one year: 98 (1994).
In 2025, 24 US boys were named Nikolaus, making it the 4,346th most common boys’ name of the year, down 681 places from #3,665 in 2024. That is 7 fewer than the 31 boys named Nikolaus in 2024. Its best rank for boys was #1,086, reached in 1980. The most boys given the name in a single year was 98, in 1994. For comparison, it was #4,505 in 2015 and unranked in 1950.
Social Security card records list Nikolaus in 60 years of the 146 from 1880 to 2025, starting in 1955 with 5 babies. In all, 2,656 US babies have been given the name, all of them boys. Its busiest decade was the 1990s, with 830 babies named Nikolaus.
Over the 10 years from 2016 to 2025, 250 US boys were named Nikolaus; the busiest of those years was 2021, with 33. In 2025 that was about 1 in 71,170 of the boys in SSA’s list for the year.
Related spellings in the SSA files include Nicholas (929,199 babies since 1880), Nicolas (101,764 babies since 1880), Nikolas (24,050 babies since 1880) and Niko (15,135 babies since 1880).
Meaning not yet researched.
We publish a meaning only with a cited source and a confidence label, and never generate one. Meanings are being researched for the most common names first.
Numbers are all-time US births. Links come from Wikidata’s “said to be the same as” (P460, CC0) and our spelling rule: at most two letters different, with the same sound pattern.
No nicknames listed for Nikolaus in the open dataset we use.
Source: carltonnorthern/nicknames (Apache-2.0).
Births and national rank for each year SSA lists the name, newest first.
| Year | Girls | Girls rank | Boys | Boys rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | — | — | 24 | #4,346 |
| 2024 | — | — | 31 | #3,665 |
| 2023 | — | — | 15 | #6,138 |
| 2022 | — | — | 24 | #4,399 |
| 2021 | — | — | 33 | #3,471 |
| 2020 | — | — | 21 | #4,656 |
| 2019 | — | — | 33 | #3,472 |
| 2018 | — | — | 19 | #5,053 |
| 2017 | — | — | 27 | #3,949 |
| 2016 | — | — | 23 | #4,430 |
| 2015 | — | — | 22 | #4,505 |
| 2014 | — | — | 47 | #2,609 |
| 2013 | — | — | 25 | #4,030 |
| 2012 | — | — | 29 | #3,685 |
| 2011 | — | — | 28 | #3,761 |
| 2010 | — | — | 44 | #2,772 |
| 2009 | — | — | 43 | #2,830 |
| 2008 | — | — | 48 | #2,615 |
| 2007 | — | — | 35 | #3,227 |
| 2006 | — | — | 40 | #2,864 |
| 2005 | — | — | 52 | #2,288 |
| 2004 | — | — | 63 | #1,948 |
| 2003 | — | — | 64 | #1,865 |
| 2002 | — | — | 54 | #2,037 |
| 2001 | — | — | 68 | #1,705 |
| 2000 | — | — | 72 | #1,634 |
| 1999 | — | — | 75 | #1,513 |
| 1998 | — | — | 86 | #1,365 |
| 1997 | — | — | 78 | #1,411 |
| 1996 | — | — | 80 | #1,354 |
| 1995 | — | — | 87 | #1,253 |
| 1994 | — | — | 98 | #1,150 |
| 1993 | — | — | 66 | #1,442 |
| 1992 | — | — | 96 | #1,127 |
| 1991 | — | — | 89 | #1,179 |
| 1990 | — | — | 75 | #1,283 |
| 1989 | — | — | 71 | #1,302 |
| 1988 | — | — | 73 | #1,188 |
| 1987 | — | — | 67 | #1,184 |
| 1986 | — | — | 63 | #1,211 |
| 1985 | — | — | 50 | #1,382 |
| 1984 | — | — | 51 | #1,311 |
| 1983 | — | — | 56 | #1,232 |
| 1982 | — | — | 52 | #1,304 |
| 1981 | — | — | 64 | #1,150 |
| 1980 | — | — | 70 | #1,086 |
| 1979 | — | — | 67 | #1,097 |
| 1978 | — | — | 47 | #1,345 |
| 1977 | — | — | 17 | #2,626 |
| 1976 | — | — | 12 | #3,205 |
| 1975 | — | — | 10 | #3,601 |
| 1974 | — | — | 13 | #2,901 |
| 1973 | — | — | 6 | #4,911 |
| 1972 | — | — | 9 | #3,528 |
| 1971 | — | — | 8 | #3,858 |
| 1970 | — | — | 9 | #3,449 |
| 1969 | — | — | 7 | #3,828 |
| 1968 | — | — | 8 | #3,293 |
| 1966 | — | — | 7 | #3,449 |
| 1955 | — | — | 5 | #4,226 |
About the data: counts are Social Security card applications for US births, for names given to at least five babies of a sex in a year (SSA, names.zip, public domain). Ranks follow SSA’s own order: most births first, ties alphabetical. Files retrieved 2026-10-05 (checksum on our sources page).