Primarily a boy's name · 100% boys
Origin: HebrewMichael is a common masculine given name usually thought to be from the Hebrew rhetorical question מי כאל, "Who [is] like [the Hebrew god] El?", thus being a theophoric name whose answer is "there is none like El", or "there is none as famous and powerful as God." This question is known in Latin as Quis ut Deus?
From Wikipedia
In Pythagorean numerology, every letter has a value from 1 to 9. Adding the letters of Michael yields these three numbers — a playful read on the name's character.
Michael's scale dwarfs almost everything else in this range: 4,440,391 total US births since 1880, and it was the #1 boys' name for a long stretch through the mid-1950s, peaking at 92,786 births in a single year, 1957 — a figure that puts it in the same historical tier as James and William from the top-25 batch.
The drop-off since has been sharp by comparison: 8,189 births in 2024, down 47% from ten years prior, one of the steeper declines among the long-established names covered so far. Even so, #18 nationally is a remarkable landing spot for a name whose peak was nearly six figures in a single year.
Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, and Michael Faraday cover music, sport, and science across three different centuries, which is typical of a name this old — its famous-bearer list reads less like a snapshot of one generation and more like a running tally across the whole 20th century.
Why did you choose this name — or what does it mean to you? Approved stories appear on this page.
→ See names similar to Michael · Compare Michael with another name → · Popular names of the 1950s · Boys names starting with M
Rank is among all boys' names registered that year.
| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1880 | 354 | #46 |
| 1881 | 298 | #54 |
| 1882 | 321 | #57 |
| 1883 | 307 | #55 |
| 1884 | 373 | #51 |
| 1885 | 370 | #47 |
| 1886 | 348 | #53 |
| 1887 | 344 | #48 |
| 1888 | 466 | #46 |
| 1889 | 377 | #51 |
| 1890 | 394 | #48 |
| 1891 | 333 | #55 |
| 1892 | 380 | #59 |
| 1893 | 407 | #49 |
| 1894 | 423 | #51 |
| 1895 | 413 | #52 |
| 1896 | 399 | #53 |
| 1897 | 368 | #57 |
| 1898 | 434 | #52 |
| 1899 | 375 | #51 |
| 1900 | 495 | #51 |
| 1901 | 384 | #52 |
| 1902 | 460 | #48 |
| 1903 | 466 | #47 |
| 1904 | 462 | #50 |
| 1905 | 513 | #45 |
| 1906 | 531 | #46 |
| 1907 | 586 | #48 |
| 1908 | 688 | #44 |
| 1909 | 635 | #47 |
| 1910 | 844 | #45 |
| 1911 | 1,159 | #38 |
| 1912 | 2,104 | #42 |
| 1913 | 2,607 | #40 |
| 1914 | 3,362 | #40 |
| 1915 | 4,079 | #43 |
| 1916 | 4,210 | #44 |
| 1917 | 4,288 | #44 |
| 1918 | 4,296 | #45 |
| 1919 | 3,910 | #46 |
| 1920 | 4,003 | #50 |
| 1921 | 4,198 | #47 |
| 1922 | 3,990 | #48 |
| 1923 | 3,915 | #50 |
| 1924 | 3,874 | #54 |
| 1925 | 3,761 | #55 |
| 1926 | 3,485 | #56 |
| 1927 | 3,605 | #52 |
| 1928 | 3,598 | #53 |
| 1929 | 3,465 | #54 |
| 1930 | 3,542 | #54 |
| 1931 | 3,489 | #55 |
| 1932 | 3,607 | #54 |
| 1933 | 3,549 | #53 |
| 1934 | 4,108 | #47 |
| 1935 | 4,906 | #41 |
| 1936 | 5,800 | #33 |
| 1937 | 7,094 | #27 |
| 1938 | 9,076 | #21 |
| 1939 | 10,829 | #18 |
| 1940 | 13,228 | #18 |
| 1941 | 15,935 | #16 |
| 1942 | 21,728 | #13 |
| 1943 | 24,745 | #10 |
| 1944 | 26,717 | #9 |
| 1945 | 29,902 | #9 |
| 1946 | 41,192 | #7 |
| 1947 | 50,505 | #7 |
| 1948 | 52,566 | #6 |
| 1949 | 60,046 | #5 |
| 1950 | 65,138 | #4 |
| 1951 | 72,805 | #4 |
| 1952 | 79,039 | #4 |
| 1953 | 84,202 | #3 |
| 1954 | 88,564 | #1 |
| 1955 | 88,352 | #1 |
| 1956 | 90,691 | #1 |
| 1957 | 92,786 | #1 |
| 1958 | 90,598 | #1 |
| 1959 | 85,291 | #1 |
| 1960 | 84,139 | #2 |
| 1961 | 86,968 | #1 |
| 1962 | 85,056 | #1 |
| 1963 | 83,757 | #1 |
| 1964 | 82,619 | #1 |
| 1965 | 81,002 | #1 |
| 1966 | 79,984 | #1 |
| 1967 | 82,412 | #1 |
| 1968 | 81,974 | #1 |
| 1969 | 85,159 | #1 |
| 1970 | 85,271 | #1 |
| 1971 | 77,585 | #1 |
| 1972 | 71,391 | #1 |
| 1973 | 67,808 | #1 |
| 1974 | 67,535 | #1 |
| 1975 | 68,422 | #1 |
| 1976 | 66,917 | #1 |
| 1977 | 67,588 | #1 |
| 1978 | 67,133 | #1 |
| 1979 | 67,718 | #1 |
| 1980 | 68,687 | #1 |
| 1981 | 68,759 | #1 |
| 1982 | 68,228 | #1 |
| 1983 | 67,997 | #1 |
| 1984 | 67,741 | #1 |
| 1985 | 64,936 | #1 |
| 1986 | 64,236 | #1 |
| 1987 | 63,663 | #1 |
| 1988 | 64,168 | #1 |
| 1989 | 65,409 | #1 |
| 1990 | 65,318 | #1 |
| 1991 | 60,807 | #1 |
| 1992 | 54,409 | #1 |
| 1993 | 49,568 | #1 |
| 1994 | 44,475 | #1 |
| 1995 | 41,410 | #1 |
| 1996 | 38,373 | #1 |
| 1997 | 37,557 | #1 |
| 1998 | 36,619 | #1 |
| 1999 | 33,915 | #2 |
| 2000 | 32,043 | #2 |
| 2001 | 29,689 | #2 |
| 2002 | 28,258 | #2 |
| 2003 | 27,129 | #2 |
| 2004 | 25,470 | #2 |
| 2005 | 23,827 | #2 |
| 2006 | 22,651 | #2 |
| 2007 | 22,024 | #2 |
| 2008 | 20,651 | #2 |
| 2009 | 18,960 | #3 |
| 2010 | 17,381 | #3 |
| 2011 | 16,822 | #6 |
| 2012 | 16,209 | #7 |
| 2013 | 15,540 | #7 |
| 2014 | 15,496 | #7 |
| 2015 | 14,497 | #9 |
| 2016 | 14,139 | #8 |
| 2017 | 12,723 | #12 |
| 2018 | 11,750 | #14 |
| 2019 | 10,614 | #14 |
| 2020 | 9,824 | #12 |
| 2021 | 9,136 | #17 |
| 2022 | 8,888 | #16 |
| 2023 | 8,416 | #16 |
| 2024 | 8,189 | #18 |
