Mckaila
A feminine name with Celtic and Irish origins meaning "scholar" or "one with many talents".
Name Census estimates that about 241 living Americans carry the first name Mckaila. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Mckaila today is around 23 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mckaila births was 1998 (22 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mckaila. 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.
People living today
241
~ 1 in 1,422,217 Americans
Peak year
1998
22 babies that year
Average age
23
years old
2017 SSA rank
#15,305
Tracked since 1993
Census
Mckaila in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 226 people with the first name Mckaila, which placed it at #35,529 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
#35,529
National first-name rank
People counted
226
226 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
65.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mckaila
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mckaila is White at 65.5%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (11.5%) and Black (11.1%). 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 Mckaila 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 Mckaila at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White65.5% · 148
- Two or more races11.5% · 26
- Black or African American11.1% · 25
- Hispanic or Latino9.7% · 22
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.8% · 4
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.4% · 1
Popularity
Mckaila: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mckaila from the 1990s through to the 2010s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 111 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Mckaila remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Mckaila 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 Mckaila during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mckaila
The name Mckaila is a relatively modern anglicized spelling variation of the Irish Gaelic name Michaela, which is the feminine form of the male name Michael, meaning "who is like God." The prefix "Mc" or "Mac" is a Scottish and Irish surname prefix meaning "son of."
Mckaila emerged as a creative spelling in English-speaking countries like the United States and the United Kingdom in the late 20th century. While the name Michael has roots dating back to Ancient Hebrew, the specific spelling Mckaila does not have a long historical lineage. It likely arose as a unique feminine variation combining the traditional prefix with a trendy spelling.
There are no known historical figures of great significance who bore the exact name Mckaila. However, some notable people named Michaela include Michaela Conlin, an American actress born in 1978 known for her role in the TV series Bones, and Michaela Strachan, a British TV presenter and former children's TV host born in 1966.
Other women throughout history have held variations of the name Michael, such as Michaeline Chitham, an English centenarian born in 1905 who lived to be 108 years old. There was also Michaela Grzybowska, a Polish Roman Catholic religious leader born in 1624 who founded the Congregation of Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Micaela Bastidas, born in 1744, was a Peruvian revolutionary and activist who fought for independence from Spain and played a crucial role in the Tupac Amaru II rebellion in the late 18th century. Another notable bearer of this name was Micaela Navarro de Baptista, a 19th-century Venezuelan poet and writer born in 1825.
While the name Mckaila is a modern invention without a deep historical legacy, it draws inspiration from the long-standing tradition of the name Michael and its feminine variations, which have been present in various cultures and religions throughout the centuries.
People
Mckaila + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mckaila 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
Mckaila: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mckaila?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 241 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mckaila 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 1,422,217 US residents.
Is Mckaila a common name?
We classify Mckaila as "Very Rare". It ranks above 76.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 246 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mckaila most popular?
The single biggest year for Mckaila was 1998, when 22 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mckaila is about 23 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mckaila in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 226 people with the name Mckaila, or 0.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #35,529 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 Mckaila 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 Mckaila?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mckaila appears almost entirely female. Of the 219 people counted with this name, 100.0% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Mckaila?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mckaila is White at 65.5%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (11.5%) and Black (11.1%). 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 Mckaila most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Mckaila in the 2020 Census, accounting for 65.5% (148 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 Mckaila in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mckaila a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Mckaila 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 Mckaila still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mckaila 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 Mckaila 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 Mckaila?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.