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Michele vs Mickaela

American parents have registered 226,063 Micheles since 1880, against 509 Mickaelas. Michele is still ahead, with 28 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Michele against Mickaela, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Michele Mickaela

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

Michele has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1905 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2022, when Michele had 40 and Mickaela had 12.

Side by side

  Michele Mickaela
Total US births 226,063509
Most in one year 11,28148
Babies in 2025 28under 5
Estimated living today 199,000500
Median age today 5726
Peak year 19681997
Best rank 29th girls2,622nd girls
Rank in 2025 4,758thunranked
First recorded 19051985
Girls / boys 223,299 / 2,764509 / 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 Micheles alive today are over 57; half the Mickaelas are over 26. That is 31 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Michele Mickaela
France 180,395 Michèle725
Ireland 1,3988
Belgium 413 Michèle5 Mickaëla
England and Wales 2146

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: Michele and Mickaela.