How popular is the baby name Nicola in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Nicola.

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Popularity of the baby name Nicola


Posts that mention the name Nicola

Popular baby names in Italy, 2021

Flag of Italy
Flag of Italy

The Southern European country of Italy — that boot-shaped peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean Sea — shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia.

Last year, Italy welcomed 400,249 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Sofia and Leonardo.

Here are Italy’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Sofia, 5,578 baby girls (2.86%)
  2. Aurora, 4,991
  3. Giulia, 4,616
  4. Ginevra, 3,803
  5. Beatrice, 3,647
  6. Alice, 3,392
  7. Vittoria, 3,202
  8. Emma, 2,876
  9. Ludovica, 2,813
  10. Matilde, 2,633
  11. Giorgia, 2,359
  12. Camilla, 2,343
  13. Chiara, 2,320
  14. Anna, 2,291
  15. Bianca, 2,201
  16. Nicole, 2,169
  17. Gaia, 2,088
  18. Martina, 2,069
  19. Greta, 2,052
  20. Azzurra, 1,673
  21. Sara, 1,651
  22. Arianna, 1,647
  23. Noemi, 1,639
  24. Rebecca, 1,533
  25. Mia, 1,494
  26. Isabel, 1,422
  27. Adele, 1,349
  28. Chloe, 1,317
  29. Elena, 1,298
  30. Francesca, 1,260
  31. Gioia, 1,202
  32. Ambra, 1,171
  33. Viola, 1,152
  34. Carlotta, 1,149
  35. Cecilia, 1,144
  36. Diana, 1,117
  37. Alessia, 1,101
  38. Elisa, 1,086
  39. Emily, 1,070
  40. Marta, 1,066
  41. Maria, 989
  42. Margherita, 988
  43. Anita, 978
  44. Giada, 972
  45. Eleonora, 926
  46. Nina, 856
  47. Miriam, 842
  48. Asia, 823
  49. Amelia, 805
  50. Diletta, 804 – means “beloved” in Italian.

Boy Names

  1. Leonardo, 8,448 baby boys (4.12%)
  2. Alessandro, 4,975
  3. Tommaso, 4,973
  4. Francesco, 4,924
  5. Lorenzo, 4,642
  6. Edoardo, 4,369
  7. Mattia, 4,215
  8. Riccardo, 3,992
  9. Gabriele, 3,944
  10. Andrea, 3,860
  11. Diego, 2,946
  12. Matteo, 2,867
  13. Nicolò, 2,847
  14. Giuseppe, 2,740
  15. Antonio, 2,598
  16. Federico, 2,546
  17. Pietro, 2,247
  18. Samuele, 2,225
  19. Giovanni, 2,211
  20. Filippo, 2,113
  21. Enea, 1,963 – form of Aeneas.
    • According to Greek mythology, the Trojan hero Aeneas was an ancestor of twins Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. One ancient source associates Aeneas’ name with the Greek adjective ainos, meaning “unspeakable, causing nervousness, fear, terror.”
  22. Davide, 1,925
  23. Christian, 1,738
  24. Gioele, 1,722
  25. Giulio, 1,713
  26. Michele, 1,685
  27. Marco, 1,541
  28. Gabriel, 1,439
  29. Elia, 1,403
  30. Luca, 1,400
  31. Salvatore, 1,374
  32. Vincenzo, 1,333
  33. Emanuele, 1,326
  34. Thomas, 1,322
  35. Alessio, 1,251
  36. Giacomo, 1,197
  37. Nathan, 1,192
  38. Liam, 1,174
  39. Simone, 1,166
  40. Samuel, 1,133
  41. Jacopo, 1,129
  42. Noah, 1,097
  43. Daniele, 1,050
  44. Giorgio, 1,025
  45. Ettore, 1,002 – form of Hector.
  46. Luigi, 996
  47. Daniel, 946
  48. Manuel, 936
  49. Nicola, 859
  50. Damiano, 830

Leonardo is still the clear favorite for baby boys, while Azzurra — no doubt inspired by Italy’s national soccer team gli Azzurri, “the Blues” — continues its rise among baby girls:

Graph of the popularity of the baby name Azzurra in Italy from 1999 to 2021.
Popularity of Azzurra in Italy, 1999-2021

Here are Italy’s 2020 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

Sources: How many babies are named…? – Istat, Istat Statistics, Behind the Name, Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (transl. by Gregory Nagy)

Image: Adapted from Flag of Italy (public domain). Graph from Istat.

Babies named for Giuseppe Garibaldi

Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882)
Giuseppe Garibaldi

Italian general and patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) was a freedom fighter on two continents.

In his homeland, he strove to liberate the Italian states from Austrian rule, and played a crucial role in the unification of Italy in the early 1860s.

And, while he was in exile in South America (1836-1848), he participated in the revolutionary struggles of both Brazil and Uruguay.

As you might imagine, thousands of babies born in Europe — and thousands more born in South America — have been named after Giuseppe Garibaldi. (We spotted a Uruguayan baby named Garibaldi just a few months ago!)

But what about the U.S.?

Turns out that Garibaldi was strongly admired in the U.S. as well, particularly around the time of the Civil War:

Garibaldi’s thrilling deeds — unfolding day-by-day through 1860 on the front page of almost every newspaper, alongside stories detailing America’s own dissolution — stood as both an inspiration and a rebuke.

Several hundred U.S baby boys — most born during the 1860s — have been named after Garibaldi. Some examples…

  • Garibaldi Stevens (b. 1860 in Utah)
  • John Garibaldi Sargent (b. 1860 in Vermont), who served as U.S. Attorney General under Calvin Coolidge.
  • Garibaldi Dunn (b. 1861 in Kentucky)
    • He had a brother, born in 1863, named Ellsworth.
  • Eldon Garibaldi Burdick (b. 1862 in Wisconsin)
    • Both his son and his grandson were also named “Eldon Garibaldi.”
  • John Garibaldi Weihe (b. 1862 in Ohio), who played Major League Baseball in the 1880s.
  • Garibaldi Krantz (b. 1862 in Pennsylvania)
  • Garibaldi Niles (b. 1866 in Illinois)
    • He had a brother, born in 1849, named Kossuth — likely for Lajos Kossuth, who ruled Hungary during the revolution of 1848-1849.
  • Antonio Giuseppe Garibaldi Pellegrini (b. 1867 in New York)
  • Joseph Garibaldi Potter (b. 1869 in Pennsylvania)
  • Joseph Garibaldi Lanfranconi (b. 1874 in Virginia)
  • Rudolph Garibaldi Neverman (b. 1875 in Wisconsin)

The Italian surname Garibaldi, which is based on the medieval personal name Garibaldo, ultimately comes from the ancient Germanic words ger, meaning “spear, lance,” and bald, meaning “bold, brave.”

Interestingly, Giuseppe Garibaldi named two of his sons after fellow Italian patriots. Menotti, born in Brazil in 1840, was named for Ciro Menotti, while Ricciotti, born in Uruguay in 1847, was named for Nicola Ricciotti.

P.S. Giuseppe is pronounced joo-ZEHP-peh.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Garibaldi (1866)

Where did the baby name Karenina come from in 1978?

The title character from the TV mini-series "Anna Karenina" (1978).
Anna from “Anna Karenina

The literary surname Karenina first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1978:

  • 1980: unlisted
  • 1979: unlisted
  • 1978: 7 baby girls named Karenina [debut]
  • 1977: unlisted
  • 1976: unlisted

But Leo Tolstoy’s famous novel Anna Karenina was first published (in book form) way back in 1878, and it wasn’t translated from Russian to English until 1901. So how did “Karenina” suddenly wind up in the U.S. baby name data in the late 1970s?

Television! Specifically, the 10-episode mini-series Anna Karenina that originally aired on British television in 1977, then aired on American television (as part of PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre) in early 1978. The mini-series starred British actress Nicola Pagett as Countess Anna Karenina.

Russians use gender-specific forms of surnames, so “Karenina” is the feminine form of Karenin (the surname of Anna’s husband, Alexei). How did Tolstoy come up with the surname Karenin?

Many of the invented surnames in the novel have symbolic meanings or associations, some of which are humorous. […] The new passion which Tolstoy developed for learning Greek in the early 1870s is reflected in the etymology of ‘Karenin.’

Karenin was derived from káranon, the ancient Greek word for “head.”

The four-syllable surname Karenina is pronounced with a stress on the second syllable. In English it’s often pronounced kah-REH-nih-nuh, but in Russian (as you can hear at Forvo) it’s more along the lines of kah-RAY-nee-nuh.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Karenina?

Sources:

Popular baby names in British Columbia (Canada), 2017

According to British Columbia’s Vital Statistics Agency, the most popular baby names in the province in 2017 were Olivia and Benjamin.

Here are British Columbia’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2017:

Girl Names
1. Olivia, 260 baby girls
2. Emma, 231
3. Sophia, 183
4. Ava, 178 (tie)
5. Charlotte, 178 (tie)
6. Emily, 170
7. Chloe, 160
8. Hannah, 155
9. Amelia, 152
10. Abigail, 129

Boy Names
1. Benjamin, 221 baby boys
2. Liam, 220
3. Logan, 210
4. Lucas, 209
5. Ethan, 197 (tie)
6. James, 197 (tie)
7. Oliver, 186
8. Noah, 177
9. William, 176
10. Owen, 170

In the girls’ top 10, Hannah replaced Evelyn.

In the boys’ top 10, Logan replaced Jacob.

Names at the other end of the spectrum — used just five times each in 2017 — include…

  • Girl names: Ann, Beatrix, Cedar, Della, Elowen, Greta, Harlyn, Inaaya, Jenny, Karla, Leen, Marwa, Nicola, Ocean, Paris, Reyna, Sakura, Tina, Zaynab
  • Boy names: Ayan, Bishop, Clay, Darian, Emery, Flynn, Gurtaj, Houston, Ivar, Jerry, Kendrick, Loki, Mack, Niall, Princeton, Rayyan, Stellan, Tai, Zavier

The top names in 2016 were Olivia and Lucas.

Source: Baby’s Most Chosen Names in British Columbia, 2017