Nikola
A Slavic name meaning "victory of the people". It crested in the 2000s and has been sliding ever since: fewer girls get it each year, though with tens of thousands of women carrying it, it still rings familiar across Poland.
Nikola Pronunciation
Nikola is pronounced nyee-KO-lah (/ɲiˈkɔla/).
What Nikola means
Where Nikola comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Nikola is the Slavic form of a name assembled from two Greek pieces: nikē, victory, and laos, the people. Together they give the sense written in Polish as zwycięstwo ludu, victory of the people. The Greek Nikolaos moved north long ago and settled into Slavic speech as Nikola, and in Poland it now belongs to girls.
In the 2000s the name climbed high on the lists given to Polish daughters. It travels in company. The variants Nicoleta and Nikoleta swap the ending while keeping the same root of victory and people.
The name is short. Read a class register in a Polish school and you will probably find a Nikola somewhere near the front. Whatever the spelling on the page, the meaning holds steady: zwycięstwo ludu, victory of the people.
When Nikola celebrates name day
Nikola appears 2 times in the Polish name day calendar, never as a main name. The first of these dates is 1 November.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Nikola
1 in 287 women in Poland is named Nikola. 78,816 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #142 among female names.
Nikola's popularity over time
623 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #92 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000.
Where Nikola is most popular
Nikola is most popular in Świętokrzyskie, 57% above the national average (321 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Lublin (+46%) and Łódź (+45%). It is least common in Opole and Pomeranian, 44% and 30% below average respectively.
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Świętokrzyskie321 girls born+57%
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Lublin553 girls born+46%
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Łódź676 girls born+45%
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Subcarpathian641 girls born+44%
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Podlaskie326 girls born+34%
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Warmian-Masurian300 girls born+13%
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Lesser Poland888 girls born+6%
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Masovian1,293 girls born−1%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian364 girls born−10%
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Greater Poland708 girls born−11%
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West Pomeranian275 girls born−12%
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Lubusz138 girls born−25%
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Lower Silesian429 girls born−26%
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Pomeranian383 girls born−30%
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Silesian586 girls born−30%
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Opole96 girls born−44%
Nikola as a middle name
Nikola is a first name for 78,816 women in Poland and a middle name for another 10,284, an 88/12 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 108th, between Marlena (10,361) and Jagoda (10,085).
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#106 Dagmara10,634
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#107 Marlena10,361
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#108 Nikola10,284
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#109 Jagoda10,085
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#110 Eliza10,077