Michael
Meaning
who is like God
Goes by Mick, Mickey, Mike, Mikey, and 1 more
Immortalized by Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972). Famously borne by Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps.
The story
Michael is a question rather than a statement: the Hebrew Mikha'el asks who is like God, and in scripture it belongs to the archangel who leads the armies of heaven. It kept a steady, modest presence in America for decades until the 1940s, when it caught an updraft that barely paused for half a century. Michael became the number one boys' name in the mid-1950s and held the top spot almost without interruption into the late 1990s, a run of dominance few American names have ever matched. The chart below shows it plainly: a long climb, a high plateau through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, then a slow descent as the sons of all those Michaels looked elsewhere for their own children. It remains everywhere in adult life, of course: a whole American generation still answers to it.
Michael around the world
One shared root links 16 names across 6 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew Mikha'el "who is like God?", the rhetorical question borne by the archangel
The constellation
11 more branches of this family
Michael in song
Michael
The Highwaymen (1960)
A college folk group's arrangement of an old spiritual first written down in the South Carolina Sea Islands, sung by boatmen rowing to shore, recorded in 1960 and a number one hit by 1961.
On record since at least 840: Michael III, Byzantine emperor.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Michael peaked in the 1960s and the 1980s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
65,688 people · the #463 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 3,096 · median age 27
Among people named Michael living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1990s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 1,686 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Michael
Most people given the name Michael in the United States were born between 1950 and 1999. The Michael you meet today is most often in his 40s or 50s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Michael deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Michael truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Michael fits with your family’s names and surname.
Where Michael travels
Arab American · who is like God (common both among Muslim families honoring the archangel Mikail and Christian Arab American families)
Filipino American · who is like God (a classic Filipino Catholic and English crossover name)
Vietnamese American · who is like God (a classic refugee-generation English/baptismal name)
Keep exploring
Nicknames for Michael · Arab American baby names · Filipino American baby names · Vietnamese American baby names
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