Michael — #18 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Michael

The Social Security Administration has registered 4,418,526 babies named Michael between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Michael currently holds the #18 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1957, when 92,786 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Michael performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 837,466 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Michael shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 440,658 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and Pennsylvania. In total, SSA state-level files list Michael in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Michael in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 4,418,526 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.