Nice
loc · Latin script
Meaning: from a medieval nickname for a foolish or simple-minded person
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nice is a name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in France.
- FRFrance
- CVCape Verde
- PTPortugal
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 83 (measured from records)
no count published
Highest-authority source
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from a medieval nickname for a foolish or simple-minded person
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nice counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | — | 132 | Nice | 2 |
| PT Portugal | — | listed | Nice | 11 |
| BR Brazil | — | 7.5K | Nice | 83 |
| CV Cape Verde | — | — | Nice | 2 |
| MX Mexico | — | — | Nice | 24 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 1.6K | Nice | 14 |
| US United States | — | 3.7K | — | 52 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Nice is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, candid, naive
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, resort. France
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Americanized spelling of German Nets.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Swedish, alternative form of najs (“nice”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Czech, dative/locative singular of nika
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Harry Niceb. 1877US50th Governor of Maryland in the United States from 1935 to 1939
- Margaret Morse Niceb. 1883USAmerican ornithologist (1883–1974)
- Geoffrey Niceb. 1945GBBritish barrister and judge
- Steve Harleyb. 1951GBnot in their usual nameBritish musician and songwriter (1951–2024)
- Phil Niceb. 1959GBBritish actor
- Chuck Niceb. 1966USAmerican comedian
- Natasha Niceb. 1988FRFrench-American pornographic actress
- Penelope NiceGBBritish actress
- Olivia Niceactress
- Salim Nicemayor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 47 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.7K | #8,523 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.6K | #9,090 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.4K | #8,945 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 1.6K | #4,542 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 132 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Nice mean, and where does it come from?
- from a medieval nickname for a foolish or simple-minded person Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Nice have the most bearers?
- Nice is most frequently recorded in France, where it is most often spelled nice.
What do you want to know about Nice?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/niceThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Nice”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.