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Micael vs Michele

American parents have registered 226,063 Micheles since 1880, against 731 Micaels. Michele is still ahead, with 28 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Micael against Michele, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Micael Michele

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Michele has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1905 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2021, when Micael had 9 and Michele had 30.

Side by side

  Micael Michele
Total US births 731226,063
Most in one year 2111,281
Babies in 2025 828
Estimated living today 660199,000
Median age today 3857
Peak year 20161968
Best rank 4,624th boys29th girls
Rank in 2025 8,910th4,758th
First recorded 19481905
Girls / boys 0 / 731223,299 / 2,764

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Micheles alive today are over 57; half the Micaels are over 38. That is 19 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Micael Michele
France 850180,395 Michèle
Switzerland 111480
England and Wales 6214

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Micael and Michele.