Humanverse

Mike vs Miking

American parents have registered 206,523 Mikes since 1880, against 330 Mikings. Mike is still ahead, with 163 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mike against Miking, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mike Miking

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

Mike has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2015, when Mike had 196 and Miking had 35.

Side by side

  Mike Miking
Total US births 206,523330
Most in one year 12,06935
Babies in 2025 1638
Estimated living today 132,000330
Median age today 649
Peak year 19602015
Best rank 36th boys3,231st boys
Rank in 2025 1,231st8,910th
First recorded 18802010
Girls / boys 662 / 205,8610 / 330

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 Mikes alive today are over 64; half the Mikings are over 9. That is 55 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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