Mishael
Of Hebrew origin, meaning "who is what God is?".
Name Census estimates that about 607 living Americans carry the first name Mishael. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 71.4% of registrations being male. The average person named Mishael today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mishael births was 1996 (24 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mishael. 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 Mishael with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
607
~ 1 in 564,669 Americans
Peak year
1996
24 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2024 SSA rank
#9,552
Tracked since 1969
Census
Mishael in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 667 people with the first name Mishael, which placed it at #16,778 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
#16,778
National first-name rank
People counted
667
667 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
31.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mishael
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mishael is Black at 31.8%. The next largest groups are White (28.6%) and Hispanic (21.6%). 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 Mishael 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 Mishael at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American31.8% · 212
- White28.6% · 191
- Hispanic or Latino21.6% · 144
- Asian and Pacific Islander11.2% · 75
- Two or more races6.7% · 45
Gender
Gender distribution for Mishael
Mishael is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 622 total registrations, 444 (71.4%) were male and 178 (28.6%) were female.
Mishael as a male name
- Ranked #9,552 in 2024
- 8 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2021 (19 births)
Mishael as a female name
- Ranked #18,285 in 2015
- 5 female births in 2015
- Peak: 1997 (10 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Mishael on both sides of the split. Of the 672 people counted with this name, 420 were male (62.5%) and 252 were female (37.5%).
Popularity
Mishael: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mishael from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 174 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Mishael remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Mishael 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 Mishael during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Mishaels live
Origin
Meaning and history of Mishael
The name Mishael is a Hebrew name derived from the elements "mi" meaning "who" and "El" meaning "God". It is believed to have originated in ancient Israel and has been in use for thousands of years. The name is often interpreted to mean "who is like God".
Mishael is found in the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. It was the name given to one of the four young men from the tribe of Judah who were taken captive to Babylon along with Daniel. Mishael was known in Babylon by the name Meshach. In the Book of Daniel, Mishael and his companions refused to worship the golden idol erected by King Nebuchadnezzar, leading to their famous deliverance from the fiery furnace.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Mishael is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date back to the 3rd century BCE. The name appears in several scrolls, including the War Scroll and the Damascus Document, indicating it was in use among the Essene community at Qumran.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals named Mishael. One of the earliest was Mishael ben Uzziel, a 1st-century BCE Jewish scholar and one of the famous Tannaim, the rabbis who lived during the period of the Mishnah. Another was Mishael ben Shesheth, a 9th-century CE Karaite Jewish scholar and author from Jerusalem.
In the Christian tradition, there was Mishael the Confessor, a 9th-century Byzantine monk and saint who was exiled for his opposition to iconoclasm. A later figure was Mishael Shulamit, a 16th-century Italian Jewish poet and writer from Ferrara.
In more recent times, Mishael Cheshin (1923-2015) was an Israeli Supreme Court judge who served for over 30 years, and Mishael Caspi (1924-2001) was an Israeli politician and member of the Knesset.
People
Mishael + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mishael 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
Mishael: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mishael?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 607 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mishael 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 564,669 US residents.
Is Mishael a common name?
We classify Mishael as "Very Rare". It ranks above 86.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 622 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mishael most popular?
The single biggest year for Mishael was 1996, when 24 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mishael is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mishael in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 667 people with the name Mishael, or 0.22 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #16,778 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 Mishael 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 Mishael?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Mishael on both sides of the split. Of the 672 people counted with this name, 420 were male (62.5%) and 252 were female (37.5%). 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 Mishael?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mishael is Black at 31.8%. The next largest groups are White (28.6%) and Hispanic (21.6%). 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 Mishael most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Mishael in the 2020 Census, accounting for 31.8% (212 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 Mishael in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mishael a male name?
Yes, 71.4% of people registered as Mishael 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 Mishael still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mishael 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 Mishael 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 the name Mishael?
See how many people share the name Mishael on HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site built around that single question.