Nils

History & meaning

Nils is Nicholas with the middle taken out. Medieval Scandinavia received Nikolaus from the Church, wore it down to Niklas, and then wore Niklas down again until only the consonant frame was left: N-l-s. Danish and Norwegian did the same work along a slightly different path and arrived at Niels. The meaning is unchanged from the Greek — nikē, victory, and laos, people — but the register is not. Nicholas is a formal name in every language that has it. Nils is plain, short and domestic, roughly what Jack is to John in English.

Continuous use since the Middle Ages has left it woven into Nordic life at odd angles. The pet form Nisse is generally taken to derive from it, and nisse is also the word for the small bearded house spirit of Nordic folklore who looks after the farm and expects his bowl of porridge at Christmas — which is how a Greek saint's name ended up attached to the Scandinavian Christmas gnome. Selma Lagerlöf supplied the most famous fictional bearer in The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1906), a boy shrunk to thumb height and flown across Sweden on the back of a goose. She wrote it on commission as a school geography reader, won the Nobel Prize in Literature three years later, and eventually shared a Swedish twenty-krona banknote with her hero.

Why parents choose it

One syllable, four letters, and a straight line back to a Scandinavian grandfather. It is a heritage pick that needs no translating, and it has the rare quality of sounding adult from the first day. The honest caution for American families is the S: expect Niles, Neils and Nils-with-a-long-i from strangers until you correct them, and decide in advance whether that will wear on you.

Middle names for Nils

Sweden's own habit is the double first name — Nils-Erik, Nils Petter, Nils Olof — and the same logic works here: Nils Anders, Nils Magnus, Nils Emil, Nils Christian. The middle names guide covers pairing one-syllable names at greater length.

Famous Nilses

Nils Bohlin was the Volvo engineer who designed the three-point seatbelt in 1959; the company opened the patent to every other manufacturer. Nils Lofgren has played guitar with Crazy Horse and Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band for decades, and the German composer Nils Frahm has made the name familiar to a younger audience. In its Danish spelling it belongs to the physicist Niels Bohr.

Consider instead

Lars is the closest match in sound and in Scandinavian ordinariness. Soren keeps the northern feel with an extra syllable and a philosopher attached. Magnus goes the other way — same region, considerably more grandeur.