Michal
A feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "who is like God?"
Name Census estimates that about 6,783 living Americans carry the first name Michal. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 51.5% of registrations being female. The average person named Michal today is around 40 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Michal births was 1985 (158 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Michal. 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 Michal with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Michal sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
6.8K
~ 1 in 50,531 Americans
Peak year
1985
158 babies that year
Average age
40
years old
2024 SSA rank
#3,612
Tracked since 1911
Census
Michal in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 10,282 people with the first name Michal, which placed it at #2,419 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
#2,419
National first-name rank
People counted
10K
10,282 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
3.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
85.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Michal
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Michal is White at 85.5%. The next largest groups are Black (6.9%) and Hispanic (3.9%). 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 Michal 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 Michal at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White85.5% · 8,796
- Black or African American6.9% · 706
- Hispanic or Latino3.9% · 397
- Two or more races2.3% · 239
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.0% · 101
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.4% · 43
Gender
Gender distribution for Michal
Michal is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 7,762 total registrations, 3,766 (48.5%) were male and 3,996 (51.5%) were female.
Michal as a male name
- Ranked #9,543 in 2024
- 8 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1961 (71 births)
Michal as a female name
- Ranked #3,612 in 2024
- 43 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1985 (90 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Michal on both sides of the split. Of the 10,276 people counted with this name, 6,167 were male (60.0%) and 4,109 were female (40.0%).
Popularity
Michal: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Michal from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 1,248 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Michal 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 Michal during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Michals live
The SSA's state-level files cover 19 states and territories. New York, Illinois, California recorded the most babies named Michal, while Tennessee, Missouri, Massachusetts recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 131 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Michal
The name Michal is a Hebrew name with biblical origins. It is derived from the Hebrew words "mi" meaning "who" and "kal" meaning "is like". The name can be translated to mean "who is like God" or "one who resembles God".
In the Hebrew Bible, Michal was the younger daughter of King Saul and the wife of David. She is first mentioned in 1 Samuel 14:49, where her name is listed among the members of Saul's family. The biblical account portrays Michal as a woman who loved David deeply and helped him escape from her father's wrath.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Michal can be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts dating back to the 3rd century BCE. The name is also mentioned in the Talmud, a central text of Rabbinic Judaism compiled between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE.
Throughout history, several notable figures have borne the name Michal. One of the most famous was Michal, the daughter of King Saul, who lived around the 11th century BCE. Another notable Michal was Michal Sędek, a Polish Roman Catholic priest and martyr who was executed by the Nazis in 1942 for his involvement in the Polish resistance during World War II.
In the arts, Michal is the name of a character in the opera "Samson and Delilah" by Camille Saint-Saëns, which premiered in 1877. The name also appears in literature, such as in the novel "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok, published in 1967, where Michal is the daughter of a Hasidic rabbi.
Other notable figures with the name Michal include Michal Kalecki, a Polish economist who made significant contributions to the field of macroeconomics (1899-1970), and Michal Rovner, an Israeli multimedia artist known for her video installations and sculptures (born 1957).
People
Michal + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Michal 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
Michal: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Michal?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 6,783 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Michal 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 50,531 US residents.
Is Michal a common name?
We classify Michal as "Rare". It ranks above 97.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 7,762 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Michal most popular?
The single biggest year for Michal was 1985, when 158 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Michal is about 40 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Michal in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 10,282 people with the name Michal, or 3.40 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,419 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 Michal 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 Michal?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Michal on both sides of the split. Of the 10,276 people counted with this name, 6,167 were male (60.0%) and 4,109 were female (40.0%). 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 Michal?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Michal is White at 85.5%. The next largest groups are Black (6.9%) and Hispanic (3.9%). 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 Michal most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Michal in the 2020 Census, accounting for 85.5% (8,796 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 Michal in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Michal a female name?
Yes, 51.5% of people registered as Michal in the SSA data are female. 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 Michal still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Michal 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 Michal 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 are named Michal?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.