Nike comes from Greek mythology and means 'victory,' borne by the goddess of triumph.
Nike is one of the oldest and most powerful names in the Western tradition, belonging to the Greek goddess of victory who stood at the right hand of Zeus and Athena during the Titanomachy — the war between gods and Titans. Her name derives directly from the Greek *nikē*, meaning 'victory,' and she was depicted throughout antiquity as a winged figure bringing laurel wreaths to champions. The Winged Victory of Samothrace, now housed in the Louvre and carved around 190 BCE, remains one of the most celebrated sculptures in human history — Nike in marble, still moving after two millennia.
The name passed into Christian usage through the Byzantine Greek world, where Nikolaos ('victory of the people') became enormously popular and spawned a vast family of related names. Nike itself persisted as a given name in Greek communities, particularly in Greece and Cyprus, where classical names have never entirely gone out of fashion. The theologian and writer Nikephoros — 'bearer of victory' — carries the same root, as does the name Berenice, from the Macedonian Pherenike, 'bringing victory.'
In Greek Orthodox tradition the name carries no pagan taint; it belongs simply to the ancient vocabulary of hope and triumph. The late twentieth century gave Nike a second cultural life when Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman named their athletic shoe company after the goddess in 1971. The brand's global ubiquity paradoxically renewed interest in the name itself, reminding parents of its classical power.
Today Nike as a given name is used primarily in Greek families and in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where Greek Orthodox Christian influence runs deep. It is a name that carries victory in every syllable.