Franjo Rački wrote, based on a manuscript from the Franciscan library in Dubrovnik, that Nikola was the son of a Boško from Orahovo (Orahov Do, near Popovo polje, then Bosnia Eyalet, Ottoman Empire, present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina), and that the family had adopted the surname Bošković after his father.
It is notable for having been the birthplace of a Dubrovnik trader Nikola Bošković, father of the famed astronomer Ruđer Bošković.