Michael

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Michael boys named Michael

By the numbers

Total US births

4,448,633

Estimated living today

3.6 million

Median age today

50

Peak year

1957

Best rank

1st

Rank in 2025

21st

First recorded

1880

Girls / boys

21,880 / 4,426,753

How old the living Michaels are

born that year still alive today

Of the 4,448,633 babies given the name since 1880, about 3.6 million are alive — 81 in every hundred. Roughly 236,000 of them are children and 809,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1975 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Hebrew

From Middle English Michael, from Old French Michel, Old English Michahel, from their source Latin Michaēl, Michāhēl, from Ancient Greek Μῐχᾱήλ, from Biblical Hebrew מִיכָאֵל.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Michaels

• Michael Jackson (1958–2009)American singer, songwriter, record producer, and dancer
• Michael Faraday (1791–1867)British scientist
• Michael Schumacher (born 1969)German racing driver
• Michael Jordan (born 1963)American basketball player and businessman
• Michael Caine (born 1933)English actor
• Michael Phelps (born 1985)American swimmer
• Michael Douglas (born 1944)American actor, producer and activist
• Michael Clarke Duncan (1957–2012)American actor

People named Michael with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Michael is most common

• NY443,037
• CA438,536
• PA273,317
• IL258,362
• TX238,109
• OH231,162
• MI199,395
• NJ171,113
• FL148,527
• MA146,380

Relative to how many babies each state records, Michael is most concentrated in Rhode Island (1.5×), the District of Columbia (1.5×), Connecticut (1.4×), Delaware (1.4×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1957

The most popular boys’ names the year Michael peaked:

• Michael
• James
• David
• Robert
• John
• William

All the names of 1957

Michael elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Michael: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

By canton, Michael is most concentrated in Schwyz, where 0.36% of children were given it – 124 of them.

Michael: rank by region

In 2025, Michael was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.

In 2023, Michael was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.

In 2025, Michael was given 2 times or more in 10 regions of Poland.

In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Michael appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (204th), Province of Flemish Brabant (218th) and Province of East Flanders (264th).

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Michael by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Michael among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Michael lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 5,877 men called Michael were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Men: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 49 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 3 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Michelle
• Michele
• Micheal
• Micah
• Michaela
• Mickey
• Micaela
• Michel
• Michal
• Michell
• Micaiah
• Mickie

Michael against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Michael vs Michelle
• Michael vs Michele
• Michael vs Micheal
• Michael vs Micah
• Michael vs Michaela
• Michael vs Mickey

Compare Michael with a name of your own