Baby Names
elsastark
member
Nikita Belle for a girl?
elsastark
member
in Baby Names
I love the name Nikita for a girl.
But I'd like some opinions: WHY does everyone hate it so much? There doesn't seem to be a real reason.
But I'd like some opinions: WHY does everyone hate it so much? There doesn't seem to be a real reason.
Re: Nikita Belle for a girl?
It's a common name in Russia and India though.
TTC since September 2012
According to the SSA, Nikita has not been in the top 1000 boy names in the US at any time since 1960.
Nikita as a girl name climbed into the top thousand and stayed there until the year 2000. It spiked in popularity in the mid 1980s, rising all the way to 250, then quickly began a descent through the end of the millennium. The last year it was ranked in the top thousand was 2000, where it clocked in at 884. The mid 1980s saw the end of the Cold War with Russia. I suspect it spiked in popularity then because people had a mild fascination with Russian stuff, and it was a daring/different choice at that time. Nikita Khrushchev was a Soviet leader during the Cold War who in 1956 famously said to America and Americans, "We will bury you." Needless to say, this did not go over well with Americans. He is probably the most famous Nikita that Americans would know.
Keep in mind, though, that a name with a ranking of 250 is still very uncommon. My daughter's name is #319 for her birth year, and she rarely runs into another person with her name and has consistently been the only person in her entire school with her name.
Nikita has several factors which prevent it from being popular. It has a strong association with Russia which makes it a weird choice for a non-Russian family. It's actually a boy's name, although Americans almost never name boys anything that ends with "-ita" which is a feminine ending in many languages.