Michelle — #409 US girls' name

What the Data Says About Michelle

The Social Security Administration has registered 815,849 babies named Michelle between 1915 and 2024, spanning 110 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Michelle currently holds the #409 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1969, when 34,319 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Michelle performed strongest in the 1970s, accumulating 249,136 births during that ten-year window. Across the 12 decades of recorded activity, Michelle shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 114,480 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and Texas. In total, SSA state-level files list Michelle in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Michelle 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 815,849 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.