Micha
A masculine given name of Hebrew origin meaning "who is like God".
Name Census estimates that about 2,239 living Americans carry the first name Micha. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 50.9% of registrations being female. The average person named Micha today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Micha births was 2001 (62 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Micha. 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 Micha with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Micha sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
2.2K
~ 1 in 153,084 Americans
Peak year
2001
62 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,643
Tracked since 1955
Census
Micha in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,826 people with the first name Micha, which placed it at #5,864 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
#5,864
National first-name rank
People counted
2.8K
2,826 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.9
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
50.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Micha
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Micha is White at 50.8%. The next largest groups are Black (21.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.3%). 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 Micha 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 Micha at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White50.8% · 1,435
- Black or African American21.6% · 611
- Asian and Pacific Islander12.3% · 348
- Hispanic or Latino7.7% · 217
- Two or more races6.2% · 176
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.4% · 39
Gender
Gender distribution for Micha
Micha is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,334 total registrations, 1,146 (49.1%) were male and 1,188 (50.9%) were female.
Micha as a male name
- Ranked #4,643 in 2024
- 22 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2011 (39 births)
Micha as a female name
- Ranked #14,638 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1990 (38 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Micha on both sides of the split. Of the 2,819 people counted with this name, 1,405 were male (49.8%) and 1,414 were female (50.2%).
Popularity
Micha: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Micha from the 1950s through to the 2020s, spanning 8 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 483 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2000s peak, Micha remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Micha 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 Micha during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Michas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. Texas, Arkansas, California recorded the most babies named Micha, while Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, North Carolina recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 13 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Micha
The name Micha has its origins in the Hebrew language and culture, dating back to ancient times. It is a variant or diminutive form of the name Michael, which means "who is like God" or "one who is like God" in Hebrew. The name Michael is derived from the Hebrew words "mi" meaning "who" and "cha" or "el" meaning "God."
Micha is a name that has been documented in various religious texts and historical records throughout the centuries. In the Old Testament of the Bible, there is a prophet named Micah, who is also known as Micha. He lived in the 8th century BC and his prophecies are recorded in the Book of Micah.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Micha can be found in the medieval period. Micha of Rauden was a 13th-century German chronicler and historian who authored the "Annales Polonorum," a chronicle of Polish history.
In the 16th century, there was a notable figure named Micha Iwanowski, who was a Polish poet and translator. He was born in 1540 and is known for his translations of classical works into Polish.
Moving forward to the 18th century, Micha Josef Bin Gorion was a renowned German-Jewish writer and scholar. He was born in 1727 and is best known for his work "Midrash Shemot Rabbah," which is a compilation of rabbinic commentaries on the Book of Exodus.
In more recent times, one of the most famous people with the name Micha was Micha Bergese, an Italian painter and sculptor who lived from 1679 to 1744. He was known for his religious and mythological paintings, as well as his sculptures in churches and public spaces throughout Italy.
Another notable figure was Micha Zetzer, a German-Jewish playwright and poet who lived from 1888 to 1944. He is recognized for his contributions to the Yiddish theater and his works exploring Jewish culture and identity.
People
Micha + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Micha 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
Micha: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Micha?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,239 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Micha 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 153,084 US residents.
Is Micha a common name?
We classify Micha as "Rare". It ranks above 94.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,334 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Micha most popular?
The single biggest year for Micha was 2001, when 62 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Micha is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Micha in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,826 people with the name Micha, or 0.94 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #5,864 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 Micha 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 Micha?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Micha on both sides of the split. Of the 2,819 people counted with this name, 1,405 were male (49.8%) and 1,414 were female (50.2%). 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 Micha?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Micha is White at 50.8%. The next largest groups are Black (21.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.3%). 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 Micha most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Micha in the 2020 Census, accounting for 50.8% (1,435 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 Micha in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Micha a female name?
Yes, 50.9% of people registered as Micha 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 Micha still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Micha 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 Micha 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 Micha?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.