Maikel
Masculine Dutch variant of the Hebrew name Michael, meaning "who is like God?".
Name Census estimates that about 288 living Americans carry the first name Maikel. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Maikel today is around 9 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Maikel births was 2024 (34 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Maikel. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Maikel with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
288
~ 1 in 1,190,119 Americans
Peak year
2024
34 babies that year
Average age
9
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,424
Tracked since 2000
Census
Maikel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,569 people with the first name Maikel, which placed it at #9,033 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#9,033
National first-name rank
People counted
1.6K
1,569 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
86.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Maikel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maikel is Hispanic at 86.2%. The next largest groups are White (9.5%) and Black (3.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Maikel described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Maikel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino86.2% · 1,353
- White9.5% · 149
- Black or African American3.0% · 47
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.7% · 11
- Two or more races0.5% · 8
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 1
Popularity
Maikel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Maikel from the 2000s through to the 2020s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2020s, with 118 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Maikel by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Maikel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Maikels live
Origin
Meaning and history of Maikel
The name Maikel is a variant spelling of the Hebrew name Michael, which has its origins in the rhetorical question "Who is like God?" The name was widespread throughout the ancient Middle East, with early examples found in ancient Judaic texts like the Book of Daniel and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
One of the earliest recorded bearers of the name was Michael the Archangel, a prominent figure in the Bible and Quran. In the New Testament, Michael is described as leading the army of angels against Satan and his forces. His veneration as a saint began as early as the 5th century.
During the Middle Ages, the name Michael rose to popularity across Europe, thanks in part to the widespread veneration of the archangel. Notable historical figures with the name include Michael III, Byzantine Emperor from 842 to 867, and Michael the Great, prince of the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century.
The variant spelling Maikel likely originated in the Low Countries, where the Dutch and Flemish languages influenced the spelling. One of the earliest known bearers of this spelling was Maikel van Sembrouck, a Flemish painter active in the early 16th century.
Other notable individuals named Maikel include Maikel Scheffers, a 17th-century Dutch Golden Age painter, and Maikel Nabi Frljić, a 16th-century Ottoman traveler and writer from modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. The German humanist scholar Maikel Neander, who lived from 1525 to 1595, was also a bearer of this variant spelling.
During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the name Maikel continued to be used across Europe, particularly in areas with Dutch, German, and Scandinavian cultural influences. Maikel Ancher, a Danish painter from the 19th century, was another prominent figure with this name.
People
Maikel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Maikel as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Maikel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Maikel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 288 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Maikel going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,190,119 US residents.
Is Maikel a common name?
We classify Maikel as "Very Rare". It ranks above 78.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 290 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Maikel most popular?
The single biggest year for Maikel was 2024, when 34 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Maikel is about 9 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Maikel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,569 people with the name Maikel, or 0.52 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #9,033 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Maikel in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Maikel?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Maikel leans strongly male. 1,541 people counted with this name were male (98.4%), compared with 25 female bearers (1.6%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Maikel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Maikel is Hispanic at 86.2%. The next largest groups are White (9.5%) and Black (3.0%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Maikel most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Maikel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 86.2% (1,353 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Maikel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Maikel a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Maikel in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Maikel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Maikel in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Maikel can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Maikel as a first name?
If you just want to know how many people have the name Maikel, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.