Geneanet > Resources > Family Names > NICHOLAS

Origin and popularity of the name NICHOLAS

Origin

Nicholas : English (southwestern England and south Wales) and Dutch: from the personal name Nicholas (from Latin Nicolaus from Greek Nikolaos from nikān ‘to conquer’ + laos ‘people’). Forms with -ch- are due to hypercorrection (compare Anthony). The name in various vernacular forms was popular among Christians throughout Europe in the Middle Ages largely as a result of the fame of a 4th-century Lycian bishop about whom a large number of legends grew up and who was venerated in the Orthodox Church as well as the Catholic. In North America the English form of the surname has absorbed cognates from other languages and also their patronymics and other derivatives e.g. Croatian and Serbian Nikolić (see Nikolic) Greek Papanikolaou ‘(son of) Nicholas the priest’ and Nikolopoulos. Compare Nickolas.

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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press
FANBI : The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain, ©2021, University of the West of England
FANBI : The Oxford Dictionary if Family Names in Britain and Ireland, ©2016, University of the West of England

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Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 22,369 individuals with the name NICHOLAS on Geneanet.

 

Most found places for the name NICHOLAS:

    This last name in the family trees

    See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name NICHOLAS

    alro29
    (216 individuals)
    tbennett54
    (200 individuals)
    newlandrichards
    (194 individuals)
    bryanlvarner
    (184 individuals)

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