Humanverse

Mika vs Mikel

American parents have registered 12,554 Mikels since 1880, against 8,114 Mikas. But in 2025 it was Mika that was commoner, 161 babies to 81.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mika against Mikel, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mika Mikel

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

Of the 105 years in which either name was published, Mikel for 85 years and Mika for 20 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Mika Mikel
Total US births 8,11412,554
Most in one year 244224
Babies in 2025 16181
Estimated living today 7,90011,000
Median age today 1934
Peak year 20172004
Best rank 1,198th girls871st boys
Rank in 2025 1,631st1,919th
First recorded 19541882
Girls / boys 6,752 / 1,362995 / 11,559

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 Mikels alive today are over 34; half the Mikas are over 19. That is 15 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

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

Country Mika Mikel
France 860685
England and Wales 924352
Switzerland 1,12352
Poland 1984
Scotland 143

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: Mika and Mikel.