Michael

37,760 people in the United States were counted with the surname Michael in the 2020 census, making it the 909th most common in the country. That is about one person in 7,916.

By the numbers

People: 37,760
Rank: 909th
How common: 1 in 7,916
Per 100,000: 12.6

Where the name comes from

Origin a given name

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.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Michael described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 79.2%
Black, not Hispanic 10.1%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 2.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Michael

Frederick Michael, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken (1724–1767)Father of Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria
Piotr Michael (born 1988)American actor and comedian
Michael (born 1974)attornfrom Germany

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

Surnames like Michael

Also a first name

Michael has been given to 4,448,633 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1957. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.