Nixie
A feminine diminutive form of the English word "nix" meaning water sprite or goblin.
Name Census estimates that about 411 living Americans carry the first name Nixie. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Nixie today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Nixie births was 2011 (28 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Nixie. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Nixie with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
411
~ 1 in 833,952 Americans
Peak year
2011
28 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,899
Tracked since 1919
Census
Nixie in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 382 people with the first name Nixie, which placed it at #24,991 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#24,991
National first-name rank
People counted
382
382 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
57.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Nixie
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nixie is White at 57.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (28.5%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Nixie described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Nixie at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White57.1% · 218
- Hispanic or Latino28.5% · 109
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.5% · 21
- Two or more races5.2% · 20
- Black or African American2.6% · 10
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 4
Popularity
Nixie: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Nixie from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 204 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Nixie remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Nixie by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Nixie during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Nixies live
Origin
Meaning and history of Nixie
The name Nixie has its origins in the Old English word "nicor," which referred to a water sprite or nymph-like creature that inhabited rivers and streams. This term can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon era, around the 5th to 11th centuries AD, and is closely related to the Old Norse word "nykr," which also referred to a water spirit.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Nixie can be found in the 1823 German fairy tale "The Nixie of the Millpond" by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. In this tale, the Nixie is depicted as a beautiful, yet dangerous water nymph who lures a young miller into the depths of her enchanted millpond.
Throughout the 19th century, the name Nixie gained popularity in German and Scandinavian folklore, where it was often used to describe mischievous water spirits or mermaids. One notable example is the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Little Mermaid," published in 1837, where the protagonist is a Nixie who longs to become human.
In the early 20th century, the name Nixie made its way into English literature and popular culture. One of the earliest examples is the character of Nixie Benton, a young girl featured in the 1908 novel "A Girl of the Limberlost" by Gene Stratton-Porter. Another notable figure was Nixie, a mermaid character who appeared in the 1920 silent film "Down on the Farm."
While the name Nixie has remained relatively uncommon as a given name throughout history, there have been a few notable individuals who have borne it. One such person was Nixie Wolfe (1920-2021), an American actress and dancer who appeared in various Broadway productions and Hollywood films in the mid-20th century.
Another notable Nixie was Nixie Lanning (1925-2015), a British artist and painter who was known for her vibrant abstract works and her association with the St Ives School of artists in Cornwall, England.
In more recent times, the name Nixie has been associated with the world of technology, specifically with the Nixie tube, a type of vacuum tube display used in early digital clocks and calculators from the 1950s to the 1970s.
People
Nixie + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Nixie as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with N
Other first names starting with N with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Nixie: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Nixie?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 411 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Nixie going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 833,952 US residents.
Is Nixie a common name?
We classify Nixie as "Very Rare". It ranks above 82.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 431 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Nixie most popular?
The single biggest year for Nixie was 2011, when 28 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Nixie is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Nixie in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 382 people with the name Nixie, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,991 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Nixie in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Nixie?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Nixie leans strongly female. 371 people counted with this name were female (98.7%), compared with 5 male bearers (1.3%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Nixie?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Nixie is White at 57.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (28.5%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (5.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Nixie most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Nixie in the 2020 Census, accounting for 57.1% (218 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Nixie in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Nixie a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Nixie in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Nixie still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Nixie in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Nixie can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people share the name Nixie?
Want to know how many people share the name Nixie? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.