Is Nicholas in the Bible? Yes, Spelled Nicolas, in Acts 6

Yes, in another spelling. Acts 6:5 names Nicolas of Antioch, a convert to Judaism, among the seven men chosen to serve the church in Jerusalem. The King James Version, NIV and NASB spell his name Nicolas, and the ESV has Nicolaus. Nicholas is the usual English form of the same Greek name, Nikolaos, “victory of the people.”

Is Nicholas in the Bible?

The Greek text of Acts 6:5 has Nikolaos. Nicholas, Nicolas and Nicolaus all spell that one name, and the English translations differ only in which spelling they choose. Bibles in other languages use the form their readers already know: Nicolás in the Spanish Reina-Valera, Nicolau in the Portuguese Almeida, Nicolas in the French Louis Segond and Nicola in the Italian CEI. In Spanish, then, Nicolás is a biblical name, spelled as Spanish speakers spell it.

Acts says little about the man. The seven were chosen when the Greek-speaking believers in Jerusalem complained that their widows “were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food” (Acts 6:1), and the apostles prayed and laid their hands on them. Of the seven, only Nicolas of Antioch is given a home city and a description: he was a proselyte, a Gentile who had become a Jew before he followed Jesus. Whether the Nicolaitans condemned in Revelation 2 took their name from him has been argued since the second century.

What does Nicholas mean?

Nikolaos is made of two Greek words, nikē, “victory,” and laos, “people.” Nicodemus, the Pharisee who came to Jesus by night in John 3, has a name with the same meaning, built from nikē and dēmos, another Greek word for “people.”

Nicholas is not a Hebrew or Jewish name by origin, although the one Nicolas in the Bible had become a Jew by conversion. It has no Hebrew meaning. A modern Hebrew translation of the New Testament writes the Greek name in Hebrew letters as ניקולס, Nikolas, in Acts 6:5. Nick is the usual short form, and no one called Nick appears in the Bible.

Is Saint Nicholas in the Bible?

No. Saint Nicholas lived in the fourth century, long after the New Testament was written. He was bishop of Myra, in Lycia on the south coast of what is now Turkey, and the Catholic Encyclopedia says that scarcely anything else about him is historically certain. The best-known story told of him is that he secretly dropped gold through a poor man’s window on three nights so that the man’s three daughters would have dowries and would not be forced into prostitution. Tradition places him at the Council of Nicaea in 325, but none of those who attended the council mention him, and his presence there is doubtful.

His feast is 6 December. Italian merchants took his relics from Myra to Bari in 1087, and they are still kept in the church of San Nicola there. He is the patron saint of children, sailors and merchants, and of Greece and Russia. In the Netherlands he became Sinterklaas, and in the 19th century the Dutch figure gave rise to the American Santa Claus.

Is Nicholas a Christian name?

Yes. Devotion to Saint Nicholas spread the name through the Christian world, East and West. It has been common in England since the 12th century, though it became somewhat less popular after the Reformation, and in the United States it was among the ten most popular names for boys from 1993 to 2002. Five popes and two Russian tsars have borne it. The later of the two tsars, Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia, was killed with his family by the Bolsheviks in 1918. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia recognized them as saints in 1981, and the Russian Orthodox Church did the same in 2000, naming them passion-bearers.

Other saints have carried the name. Nicholas of Tolentino (c. 1245–1305), an Augustinian friar in Italy, was named after Nicholas of Myra, at whose shrine his parents had prayed for a child; he was canonized in 1446 and is invoked for the souls in purgatory. Nicholas Owen (c. 1562–1606), an English Jesuit lay brother, built hiding places for priests in the houses of Catholic families under Elizabeth I and James I. He died under torture in the Tower of London and was canonized in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Related reading

• Is Nicolas in the Bible? Yes, Nicolas of Antioch in Acts 6
• Does Santa Claus Appear in the Bible?
• Nicole Is Not in the Bible, but Nicolas Is, in Acts 6
• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names