Hi I agonized a bit over the title to be honest and despite the WP BOLD move I am quite open to suggestions I admit I dislike Count because readers will probably assume that he was a count of the sort encountered in Western Europe whereas this is a simple local gubernatorial title copied by Bulgaria from the Byzantines And per WP NCP titles or positions should not be part of the article title unless they are part of the clear WP COMMONNAME e g Empress Matilda There is AFAIK no conclusive evidence on usage however although a number of prominent English language writers Curta Fine Treadgold Jenkins Whittow use Count Nicholas it is not predominant usage at least from what I have seen I ve seen the transliterated Bulgarian form Nikola used alongside the Byzantine form komes by a Bulgarian author Antoljak in Samuel and His State for instance and any other possible variation the great Obolensky for instance eschews the title altogether Stephenson s usage which you point to above would probably support the current name i e a person named Nicholas who held the office of komes As I said I have no strong preference and would even accept Count Nicholas on the strength of the authors cited above but somehow I feel it is too weak a basis Unless you have a better overview of the literature then the best thing would be to ask for a WP RM to establish consensus among interested editors