Mychael
A masculine variant spelling of the traditionally masculine Hebrew name Michael meaning "who is like God?".
Name Census estimates that about 1,545 living Americans carry the first name Mychael. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 84.7% of registrations being male. The average person named Mychael today is around 28 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mychael births was 1989 (91 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mychael. 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
1.5K
~ 1 in 221,847 Americans
Peak year
1989
91 babies that year
Average age
28
years old
2023 SSA rank
#9,466
Tracked since 1972
Census
Mychael in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,333 people with the first name Mychael, which placed it at #10,122 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
#10,122
National first-name rank
People counted
1.3K
1,333 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
44.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mychael
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mychael is Black at 44.9%. The next largest groups are White (29.9%) and Hispanic (13.5%). 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 Mychael 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 Mychael at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American44.9% · 598
- White29.9% · 399
- Hispanic or Latino13.5% · 180
- Two or more races8.9% · 118
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.3% · 31
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 7
Gender
Gender distribution for Mychael
Mychael leans heavily male at 84.7% of total registrations, but 242 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Mychael as a male name
- Ranked #9,466 in 2023
- 8 male births in 2023
- Peak: 1989 (83 births)
Mychael as a female name
- Ranked #16,769 in 2020
- 5 female births in 2020
- Peak: 1996 (15 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mychael leans strongly male. 1,097 people counted with this name were male (82.2%), compared with 237 female bearers (17.8%).
Popularity
Mychael: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mychael from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 478 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
Mychael 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 Mychael during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Mychaels live
The SSA's state-level files cover 6 states and territories. California, Texas, Michigan recorded the most babies named Mychael, while Georgia, Colorado, Ohio recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 39 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mychael
The name Mychael is a variant spelling of the Hebrew name Michael, which means "who is like God?" in ancient Hebrew. It originates from the rhetorical question "mi ka El" meaning "who is like God?" The name first appeared in the Book of Daniel in the Bible, referring to the archangel Michael.
Michael was one of the principal angelic warriors in Hebrew tradition, often depicted as the protector of the Jewish people. As a given name, it became popular among Jews and later Christians during the Middle Ages. Over time, various spellings emerged, including Mychael, which arose as an English variant.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the spelling Mychael dates back to the 13th century in England. It was used by Mychael of Northgate, an English cleric and author who lived from around 1190 to 1258. Another early bearer of this spelling was Mychael de la Pole, an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor of England in the late 14th century.
In the 16th century, Mychael Bayfylde, an English Protestant martyr, was burned at the stake for his religious beliefs during the reign of Queen Mary I in 1556. A few decades later, Mychael Drayton, an English poet and playwright, lived from 1563 to 1631 and is remembered for his works such as "Poly-Olbion."
During the 17th century, Mychael Wigglesworth, a Puritan minister and poet in colonial New England, was born in 1631 and is known for his famous poem "The Day of Doom." In the 18th century, Mychael Fuszlein, a German artist and engraver, was active in the mid-1700s and produced numerous engravings of landscapes and architectural subjects.
People
Mychael + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mychael 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
Mychael: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mychael?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,545 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mychael 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 221,847 US residents.
Is Mychael a common name?
We classify Mychael as "Rare". It ranks above 92.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,583 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mychael most popular?
The single biggest year for Mychael was 1989, when 91 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mychael is about 28 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mychael in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,333 people with the name Mychael, or 0.44 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #10,122 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 Mychael 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 Mychael?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mychael leans strongly male. 1,097 people counted with this name were male (82.2%), compared with 237 female bearers (17.8%). 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 Mychael?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mychael is Black at 44.9%. The next largest groups are White (29.9%) and Hispanic (13.5%). 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 Mychael most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Mychael in the 2020 Census, accounting for 44.9% (598 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 Mychael in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mychael a male name?
Yes, 84.7% of people registered as Mychael 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 Mychael still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mychael 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 Mychael 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 Americans are named Mychael?
Want to know how many people share the name Mychael? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.