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Niklas

#8,056 in 2025Boys' name

Possibly victory of the people, through Nikolas

Niklas has been given to 1,711 babies in the U.S. since 1976. In 2025 it ranked #8,056 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2000, with 90 recorded.

Babies named Niklas, 2025

1 in 332,000

Niklas over time, 1880–2025

Boys
025507510018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Niklas: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly victory of the people, through Nikolas

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Niklas means

Niklas belongs to the name family reached through Niklas → Nikolas → Nikolaus. Its meaning is “victory of the people”.

Origin, language, and formation

Niklas is used in Danish, Faroese, Finnish, German, Norwegian and Swedish.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Nicholas, Nikolas and Nikolaus.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Finnish, Niklas is pronounced /ˈniklɑs/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,711 boys were recorded with the name Niklas between 1976 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 90 in 2000; its best national rank was #1,393 in 2000.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #6,911 in 2020 to #8,056 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #4,249 in 2015 to #8,056 in 2025.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Niklas?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 332,000
10 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 171,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#8,056
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
229,791 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Niklas sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 229,791 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Niklas. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Niklass were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Niklas was born before 2002 — so the typical Niklas is around 23 today.

Median birth year
2002
About 23 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
40.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
56.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
1,711
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 40.1% of all recorded uses (686).

Is Niklas rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
+5,599
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−1,145
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−3,807
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.42×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
11.1%
Peak was 2000 (90)
Years since peak
25
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,393
2000

Spellings of Niklas

Niklas is not the most common spelling — Nicolas is, with 36.0% against Niklas's 0.61%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Niklas is used

Across 1910–2025, Niklas was most concentrated in Minnesota — about 1 in 50,000 boys, against 1 in 199,589 across all states with data. It was least common in Washington (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Minnesota1 in 50,000
  2. 2California1 in 100,000
  3. 3Michigan1 in 100,000
  4. 4Florida1 in —
  5. 5Illinois1 in —
  6. 6New York1 in —
  7. 7Ohio1 in —
  8. 8Pennsylvania1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Niklas has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Niklas around the world

Where Niklas ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1997–2025
    #5,137
    in 2025
  • France
    1988–2022
    #5,167
    in 2022
  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #210
    in 2025
  • Canada
    1991–2019
    #2,293
    in 2019
  • South Australia
    1976–2011
    #784
    in 2011

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Niklas by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#8,056
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 1,145
Best rank ever
#1,393
2000
Peak year
2000
90 that year
First recorded
1976
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
1,711
Count in 2025
10

Names similar to Niklas

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

NikkolasNikolasNikitaNikolaNikoliNiklausNikalasNikhilNikosNikholasNikolaosNikkoNikolausNikolayNicklasCylasNikolaiNikkiNikodemNikaiNikanBlasNikolozNiko

Sibling names for Niklas

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Niklas

Top names of 2000, Niklas's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 2000Boys' names starting with NNicholas Variations & Nicknames