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Michele vs Mickel

American parents have registered 226,063 Micheles since 1880, against 2,009 Mickels. Michele is still ahead, with 28 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Michele Mickel

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 1914, when Michele had 14 and Mickel had 6.

Side by side

  Michele Mickel
Total US births 226,0632,009
Most in one year 11,28154
Babies in 2025 287
Estimated living today 199,0001,600
Median age today 5750
Peak year 19681957
Best rank 29th girls1,029th boys
Rank in 2025 4,758th9,714th
First recorded 19051914
Girls / boys 223,299 / 2,76447 / 1,962

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 Mickels are over 50. That is 7 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 Michele Mickel
France 180,395 Michèle65
England and Wales 21426

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 Mickel.