Mikołaj
From Greek, the name carries the sense "victory of the people". It ranks just outside Poland's hundred most-given boys' names and stays common enough that you almost certainly know one, though it's given less often now than at its 2010s peak.
Mikołaj Pronunciation
Mikołaj is pronounced mee-KO-wahy (/miˈkɔwaj/).
What Mikołaj means
Where Mikołaj comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Mikołaj comes from the Greek Nikolaos, built from nikē, victory, and laos, the people. Read plainly, it means victory of the people. Saint Nicholas of Myra wore the Greek form first, and Polish reshaped it into Mikołaj.
Poland put the name to work early. Mikołaj Kopernik, the astronomer who moved the Earth from the center of things, signed his Latin books as Nicolaus but went by Mikołaj at home. Mikołaj Rej, writing in the sixteenth century, insisted that Poles had a tongue of their own worth using, and later readers called him a father of Polish literature.
The name keeps its own day. On the sixth of December children wait for Święty Mikołaj and the small gift left in a shoe. Open a school register in early December and you will likely find a Mikołaj marked present, sharing his imieniny with the saint. The Greek Nikolaos stands behind all of it, still meaning victory of the people.
How many people are named Mikołaj
1 in 154 men in Poland is named Mikołaj. 138,622 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #101 among male names.
Mikołaj's popularity over time
3,215 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #15 among newborns. It has been stable for a decade.
Where Mikołaj is most popular
Mikołaj is most popular in Lublin, 23% above the national average (1,851 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Kuyavian-Pomeranian (+9%) and Świętokrzyskie (+7%). It is least common in Opole and Greater Poland, both 14% below average.
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Lublin1,851 boys born+23%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian1,747 boys born+9%
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Świętokrzyskie871 boys born+7%
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Podlaskie1,023 boys born+6%
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Subcarpathian1,859 boys born+5%
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Łódź1,926 boys born+3%
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Warmian-Masurian1,073 boys born+2%
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Silesian3,380 boys born+1%
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Lower Silesian2,323 boys born0%
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Masovian5,206 boys born0%
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Lesser Poland3,326 boys born0%
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West Pomeranian1,237 boys born0%
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Lubusz709 boys born−3%
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Pomeranian1,955 boys born−10%
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Opole582 boys born−14%
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Greater Poland2,724 boys born−14%
Mikołaj as a middle name
Mikołaj is a first name for 138,622 men in Poland and a middle name for another 60,849, a 69/31 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 49th, between Sławomir (60,990) and Jarosław (58,290).
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47
62,417Mieczysław
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48
60,990Sławomir
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4960,849Mikołaj
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50
58,290Jarosław
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51
58,007Wiesław