Nolan is a variant of the name ‘Nuallán’ which means ‘champion’ or ‘famous’ in Irish. The name Nolan is often associated with strength, courage, and leadership, and is also a common surname.
Nolan is a first name typically given to boys, but in rare cases also used as a girls name.
The first name Nolan is one of the top 100 most popular boys names in the US – currently at #68 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Nolan, accounting for approximately 0.30 % of all newborn boys. In the entire USA, approximately 115,735 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Nolan. That is 0.03 % of all living Americans.
Nolan is a variant of the name ‘Nuallán’ which means ‘champion’ or ‘famous’ in Irish. The name Nolan is often associated with strength, courage, and leadership, and is also a common surname.
The Latin word 'campus',... which can be used in the sense of battlefield, is the origin of the term 'champion'. In the early Middle Ages, it described a fighter who represented one of the participants in judicial duels for a certain wage.
Nolan North (*1970)
North is an American actor best known for voice acting, which he began in 2003 after the soap opera Port Charles was canceled. His voice is heard in many famous video games such as Uncharted, Assassins Creed, Prince of Persia and the Batman: Arkham franchise.
Nolan Ryan (*1947)
Ryan is a former professional baseball pitcher and sports executive. He has thrown seven no-hitters, the most of any players in the MLB. Nicknamed The Ryan Express, he was included into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999, six years after his retirement.
Nolan Smith (*1988)
A former basketball player who has been working as a coach since 2021. Smith was drafted 21st overall in the 2011 NBA draft but could not fulfill the expectations. He joined the Croatian League in 2013, and the Turkish Basketball League one year later. In 2015, he ended his career in the NBA Development League.
Nolan Bushnell (*1943)
He is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry. Bushnell co-founded Atari, Inc. in 1972, a pioneering company for video games. He also founded Chuck E. Cheese, a pizza restaurant and children's entertainment center simultaneously, in 1977.
When you hear the name Nolan, you might first think of people. But did you know that there are also places with the name Nolan? Are you also called Nolan? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
there is a county called Nolan County in Texas. It is named for Philip Nolan, one of the first American traders to visit Texas, which was a Spanish province at his time.
you can find the Nolan River. In 1961, the river was dammed, creating the reservoir Lake Pat Cleburne. Like Nolan County, it was also named after Philip Nolan.
unincorporated communities called Nolan in the United States. One is located in West Virginia, the other in Texas.
#62 - this is the highest rank Nolan has ever achieved. Not many names manage to reach such a high popularity in even one of the 140+ years of recording. The last time Nolan reached this top spot was in 2021 when 5,353 newborn boys were given this name. But as our statistics show, Nolan hasn't always been a popular name: in some years of record, most recently in the year 1891, not a single newborn or less than 5 were named Nolan (a name is only included in the official statistics if it has been given at least 5 times in a year). Nevertheless, the name Nolan has accompanied people in this country for a long time. It turns out that this name fits very well into our time today. From zero to hero - even though it took a while for Nolan to really catch on, it has become a very popular name.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Nolan was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, 4,937 newborns were given the name Nolan, making it rank #65. In the current century, the name is really taking off. So the chances of meeting a young Nolan are higher than ever.
Everyone knows him, everyone loves him and still he’s different from the mainstream: Nolan occurs in every single state of the U.S. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the nearly 50,000 different male first names that occur in the USA, only 386 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Nolan is definitely something very special. However, at the same time, since the name does not appear in the top 100 most common first names in any single state, Nolan is not one of those names that everyone encounters in his neighbourhood, but stands out from the crowd, captures attention and is something special without being strange or unknown. From Alaska to Florida, a total of 115,706 men and boys of all generations bear the name Nolan – that is one in 1,443. However, there are considerable regional differences – the name is far more popular than average in Minnesota, where one in 400 men and boys is called Nolan, while it is particularly rare in West Virginia, where you have to ask an average of 3,530 men for their name to get Nolan as an answer once.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: 3.0% of all common boys' names in the US begin with an N. This means that N as the first letter for boys' names is neither particularly common nor rare. The most common first letters of boys' names are J, A and D, while X, U and Q are the least common initials of boys' names.
With five letters, the name Nolan is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Thus, if 3.0% of all boys’ names start with an N, this initial letter is slightly less common than all other letters on average. Nevertheless, there are boys' names with N that are quite common in the U.S., the most common at present is Nicholas.
If your name is Nolan and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Nolan, you can simply say:
Nut
Orange
Lion
Apple
Nut
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Nolan
Nolan
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
N
O
L
A
N
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
N
O
L
A
N
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Nolan sounds like this:
