Humanverse

Michaela vs Michela

American parents have registered 53,702 Michaelas since 1880, against 2,217 Michelas. Michaela is still ahead, with 323 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Michaela against Michela, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Michaela Michela

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 97 years in which either name was published, Michaela for 94 years and Michela for 3 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Michaela Michela
Total US births 53,7022,217
Most in one year 3,40599
Babies in 2025 3238
Estimated living today 52,0002,100
Median age today 2729
Peak year 19971998
Best rank 100th girls1,636th girls
Rank in 2025 841st10,917th
First recorded 19211911
Girls / boys 53,633 / 692,217 / 0

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 Michelas alive today are over 29; half the Michaelas are over 27. That is 2 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 Michela
Italy 53821,124
England and Wales 3,76397
Ireland 1,80513
Scotland 1,01910
France 660145
Poland 24437

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 Michela.