Nikolay
The Russian form of the name Poland spells Mikołaj, from the Greek for "victory of the people". It stays rare here: only about 500 men carry it, and it's given less each year.
Nikolay Pronunciation
Nikolay is pronounced nyee-ko-LAH-ih (/ɲikɔˈlaɨ/).
What Nikolay means
Where Nikolay comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Nikolay descends from the Greek Nikolaos, a compound of nikē, victory, and laos, people. The plain reading is victory of the people. In Poland that same Greek root surfaces as Mikołaj, the variant nearly every child meets on December 6, the feast of Saint Nicholas.
Nikolay itself wears a Russian coat. It is the form carried by tsars and by the writer Nikolai Gogol, whose surname many Polish readers know before his given name. On a school register the spelling with a y marks the name as arriving from the East, apart from the Latin calendar that gave us Mikołaj.
The victory in the name was never a battlefield promise. It points instead toward doing well among people, a sense that settled over long centuries of use rather than a claim built into the first syllables. Say it slowly. Nikolay splits cleanly along its seam, the people on one side and their winning on the other.
How many people are named Nikolay
1 in 41209 men in Poland is named Nikolay. 518 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1295 among male names.
Nikolay's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been climbing since 2025.
Nikolay as a middle name
Nikolay is a first name for 518 men in Poland and a middle name for another 9, a 98/2 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 3369th, between Nicodem (9) and Nikołaj (9).
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#3367 Nhật9
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#3368 Nicodem9
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#3369 Nikolay9
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#3370 Nikołaj9
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#3371 Nnaemeka9