Nicole: Popularity, Rank and History

By the Baby Name Data Editorial Team · Last updated: October 2026

Nicole has been recorded in U.S. Social Security Administration baby name data in 88 of the 145 years covered by this site, first appearing in 1937 and most recently in 2024. Across that whole span, parents recorded 595,656 births with this name, split between 593,691 girls and 1,965 boys. Because the larger side of that split is girls, this page follows the girls ranking table as its main story, while still reporting the combined total above so the name can be compared fairly with every other name on the all-time list. Nicole sits just below the top-100 all-time cut used for the original launch pages, and this page was added in the October 2026 expansion from exactly the same SSA file. Every figure here is a direct count from the SSA file: there are no estimates, no projections, and no names added from any other source.

The single biggest year for Nicole was 1985, when 22,967 girls received the name and it reached rank 7 nationally. A name's peak year matters because it shows the moment when the name competed most successfully against every other name chosen that year. Rank and count tell slightly different stories: the count can rise simply because more babies were born overall, while the rank and the share of births strip out that effect. In 1985, Nicole accounted for 1.33% of all recorded girls births, which is the cleanest measure of how dominant it was at its height compared with peaks reached in smaller or larger birth years.

Nicole by decade

The decade table below is where the long story of Nicole becomes easiest to read. A decade total smooths out single-year spikes and shows whether a name was a brief fashion or a durable fixture. Names that hold high decade totals for forty or fifty years behave very differently from names that post one enormous decade and then fade, and Nicole can be placed on that spectrum directly from these ten-year sums and the best rank it managed inside each decade.

During the 1930s, Nicole recorded 28 births for girls and reached a best annual rank of 2540, placing it outside the top 100 in that decade and showing how far its standing moved compared with its strongest periods. During the 1940s, Nicole recorded 616 births for girls and reached a best annual rank of 827, placing it outside the top 100 in that decade and showing how far its standing moved compared with its strongest periods. During the 1950s, Nicole recorded 1,315 births for girls and reached a best annual rank of 700, placing it outside the top 100 in that decade and showing how far its standing moved compared with its strongest periods. During the 1960s, Nicole stayed inside the top 100 for girls, with a best rank of 47 and 18,565 births recorded over the ten years, a solid and visible presence without quite reaching the very top of the table. In the 1970s, Nicole was a top-ten name for girls, reaching as high as rank 9 and recording 144,670 births across the decade, one of its strongest ten-year stretches in the entire file. In the 1980s, Nicole was a top-ten name for girls, reaching as high as rank 6 and recording 210,498 births across the decade, one of its strongest ten-year stretches in the entire file. During the 1990s, Nicole stayed inside the top 100 for girls, with a best rank of 11 and 136,100 births recorded over the ten years, a solid and visible presence without quite reaching the very top of the table. During the 2000s, Nicole stayed inside the top 100 for girls, with a best rank of 31 and 54,580 births recorded over the ten years, a solid and visible presence without quite reaching the very top of the table.

During the 2010s, Nicole stayed inside the top 100 for girls, with a best rank of 91 and 22,305 births recorded over the ten years, a solid and visible presence without quite reaching the very top of the table. During the 2020s, Nicole recorded 5,014 births for girls and reached a best annual rank of 266, placing it outside the top 100 in that decade and showing how far its standing moved compared with its strongest periods.

Rank history in selected years

This table samples the record at intervals so the shape of the history is visible at a glance: the birth count, the national rank among girls, and the share of all girls births for that year. Shares are included deliberately. In the 1880 file the recorded birth population is far smaller than in the peak birth years of the twentieth century, so a modest count in 1880 can represent a larger share, and a larger rank, than the same count would earn today. Reading count, rank, and share together is the method this site recommends on every page, and it is explained in full on the methodology page linked in the footer. Years in which Nicole does not appear for girls are omitted rather than shown as zero, because the SSA does not release counts below five.

Recent years and the other side of the table

Between 2010 and 2024 the annual count moved from 2,570 to 961, a change of -62.6 percent, which is the clearest short-hand for where Nicole stands right now in the most recent data. In 2000, for comparison, Nicole recorded 8,562 births for girls, and in 2010 it recorded 2,570. Placing 2024 between those two reference points shows whether the latest figure is part of a steady climb, a steady slide, or a plateau after earlier movement. None of these short windows should be read on their own: a name recovering from a low base can post large percentage gains while still ranking modestly, and a name easing down from a peak can lose percentage points while remaining one of the most used names in the country.

Nicole also appears on the boys side of the file, with 1,965 recorded births between 1880 and 2024. That secondary use is much smaller than the 593,691 births recorded for girls, and SSA ranks each sex separately, so the rank history above follows the girls table only. Counting both sides together, Nicole totals 595,656 recorded births, which is the figure that places it at number 101 on this site's all-time combined list. Readers comparing names should keep the two sides separate, because a rank earned among boys and a rank earned among girls describe two different fields of competing names in the same year.

To explore further, compare Nicole with the full rankings for its peak year (1985) through the years index, browse the decade rankings, or return to the complete A–Z list of name pages. The state pages show how the biggest states ranked names in 2024, which often differs from the national order in the smaller details even when the same few names lead both tables.

Frequently asked questions

How many babies named Nicole were born in 2024?
In 2024 the SSA recorded 961 girls named Nicole, ranked 318 among girls that year.

When was Nicole most popular?
Nicole peaked in 1985 with 22,967 births for girls, reaching rank 7 that year in SSA records.

How many people named Nicole appear in SSA records since 1880?
SSA records show 595,656 births named Nicole from 1880 through 2024, counting both sexes together.

Disclaimer: Baby Name Data publishes statistics drawn from U.S. Social Security Administration baby name records. Figures are counts of Social Security card applications by year of birth and are shown for general information only. Counts below five in any year, sex, or state are not released by the SSA and are not estimated here. Nothing on this page is advice about what to name a child.

Data: U.S. Social Security Administration baby name records, 1880–2024, retrieved October 2026. Source: ssa.gov/oact/babynames/