Nikolai

Where Nikolai comes from

Nikolai hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1890
    Nikolai Reek born
    Estonian military personnel and politician
  2. 1960
    First appearance
    #3,665 among boys, 6 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  3. 1976
    Nikolai Kinski born
    French-American actor
  4. 2018
    Peak, #473
    614 babies named Nikolai — more than any year before or since.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Nikolai Kinski · French-American actor, born 1976
  • Nikolai Reek · Estonian military personnel and politician, 1890–1942
  • Nikolai Novosjolov · Estonian fencer, born 1980
  • Nikolai Fraiture · French-American musician (born 13 November 1978), born 1978
  • Nikolai Astrup · Norwegian painter, 1880–1928

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.