Mikel
Mikel reached its high-water mark in 2004 at number 871, and has been recorded 12,554 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 1,919th. About 11,000 Mikels are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 34.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Mikel boys named Mikel
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 12,554
- Estimated living today
- 11,000
- Median age today
- 34
- Peak year
- 2004
- Best rank
- 871st
- Rank in 2025
- 1,919th
- First recorded
- 1882
- Girls / boys
- 995 / 11,559
How old the living Mikels are
born that year still alive today
Of the 12,554 babies given the name since 1882, about 11,000 are alive — 89 in every hundred. Roughly 2,500 of them are children and 1,400 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1991 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 Basque
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Mikels
- Mikel Arteta (born 1982)Spanish football manager
- Mikel John Obi (born 1987)Nigerian association football player
- Mikel Merino (born 1996)Spanish footballer
- Mikel Oyarzabal (born 1997)Spanish footballer
- Mikel San José (born 1989)Spanish association football player
- Mikel Alonso (born 1980)Spanish footballer
- Mikel Balenziaga (born 1988)Spanish footballer
- Mikel Landa (born 1989)Spanish road cyclist
People named Mikel with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Mikel is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Mikel is most concentrated in Florida (2.2×), Oklahoma (2.2×), Texas (2.0×), Missouri (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2004
The most popular boys’ names the year Mikel peaked:
Mikel elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain boys | Mikel | 3,597 | 86th |
| France boys | Mikel | 685 | 1,772nd |
| England and Wales boys | Mikel | 352 | 1,119th |
| Switzerland boys | Mikel | 52 | 1,079th |
| Poland boys | Mikel | 4 birth registrations | 564th |
| Scotland boys | Mikel | 3 | 638th |
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.
Mikel: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Mikel | 35 | 0.003% | 584th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Mikel | 16 | 0.004% | 566th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Mikel | 1 | 0.002% | 195th |
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.
Mikel: rank by region
In 2019, Mikel was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Spain.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comunidad Foral de Navarra | Mikel | 9 | 34 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Spain after 10 names – 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.
Mikel 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.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Mikel | 23 | 32 |
A count of people on a register – 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 Mikel lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 24,425 men called Mikel 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
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gipuzkoa | Mikel | 6,402 | 17.865 | 1 |
| Bizkaia | Mikel | 7,087 | 12.545 | 6 |
| Araba/Álava | Mikel | 2,003 | 11.893 | 5 |
| Navarra | Mikel | 4,012 | 11.841 | 4 |
| Rioja, La | Mikel | 222 | 1.377 | 107 |
| Burgos | Mikel | 172 | 0.948 | 148 |
Listed in 50 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 2 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
Mikel against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.