Humanverse

Mikael vs Mikel

American parents have registered 12,554 Mikels since 1880, against 6,239 Mikaels. But in 2025 it was Mikael that was commoner, 176 babies to 81.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mikael against Mikel, 1880 to 2025 0 60 120 180 240 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mikael Mikel

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 105 years in which either name was published, Mikel for 92 years and Mikael for 13 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Mikael Mikel
Total US births 6,23912,554
Most in one year 228224
Babies in 2025 17681
Estimated living today 6,00011,000
Median age today 1734
Peak year 20232004
Best rank 987th boys871st boys
Rank in 2025 1,169th1,919th
First recorded 19441882
Girls / boys 300 / 5,939995 / 11,559

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 Mikels alive today are over 34; half the Mikaels are over 17. That is 17 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 Mikael Mikel
France 20,035685
England and Wales 967352
Switzerland 22152
Poland 634
Scotland 133

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: Mikael and Mikel.