Humanverse

Michaela vs Micheal

American parents have registered 156,555 Micheals since 1880, against 53,702 Michaelas. But in 2025 it was Michaela that was commoner, 323 babies to 130.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Michaela against Micheal, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Michaela Micheal

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Micheal for 113 years and Michaela for 33 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Michaela Micheal
Total US births 53,702156,555
Most in one year 3,4054,861
Babies in 2025 323130
Estimated living today 52,000124,000
Median age today 2755
Peak year 19971957
Best rank 100th girls85th boys
Rank in 2025 841st1,401st
First recorded 19211880
Girls / boys 53,633 / 691,836 / 154,719

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Micheals alive today are over 55; half the Michaelas are over 27. That is 28 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Michaela Micheal
England and Wales 3,763427
Ireland 1,8052,359
Scotland 1,01925
Northern Ireland 270484
New Zealand 68749
France 66035
Poland 2442 Mícheál

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Michaela and Micheal.