How popular is “Michael” in the USA?

Number of people named “Michael” by birth year

This chart shows how many people named “Michael” were born each year.

Due to changes to population growth and data collection rates over time, this isn't a good chart for understanding popularity.

Popularity of “Michael” by birth year

This chart shows how the popularity of “Michael” has changed over time.

Popularity is the number of people named “Michael” born in that year divided by the total number of births for that year.

Bias in sex for “Michael” by birth year

This chart shows how “Michael” has been used as gendered name over time. The scale ranges from 1 (only females) to -1 (only males).

Sex is a required field in SSA's Social Security Card applications (only 2 options). Most applications are filed around a person's time of birth.

The raw data

This table shows the data used in the above charts.

Year	Count	Proportion	Females	Males	Bias toward female
1880	354	0.001756963		354	-100%
1881	298	0.001546542		298	-100%
1882	321	0.001448994		321	-100%
1883	307	0.001415105		307	-100%
1884	373	0.001532073		373	-100%
1885	370	0.0015362		370	-100%
1886	348	0.001363011		348	-100%
1887	344	0.0013905		344	-100%
1888	466	0.001556062		466	-100%
1889	377	0.001304742		377	-100%
1890	394	0.001307229		394	-100%
1891	333	0.001161606		333	-100%
1892	380	0.001136452		380	-100%
1893	407	0.001251449		407	-100%
1894	423	0.00124893		423	-100%
1895	413	0.001176568		413	-100%
1896	399	0.001116134		399	-100%
1897	375	0.001080826	7	368	-96%
1898	434	0.001137749		434	-100%
1899	375	0.001105432		375	-100%
1900	495	0.001099367		495	-100%
1901	384	0.00111043		384	-100%
1902	460	0.001189451		460	-100%
1903	466	0.001222449		466	-100%
1904	462	0.001145024		462	-100%
1905	513	0.001210123		513	-100%
1906	536	0.001251018	5	531	-98%
1907	586	0.001259156		586	-100%
1908	688	0.001407961		688	-100%
1909	642	0.00125581	7	635	-98%
1910	853	0.001444023	9	844	-98%
1911	1166	0.001809778	7	1159	-99%
1912	2112	0.00213752	8	2104	-99%
1913	2619	0.002303205	12	2607	-99%
1914	3378	0.00238501	16	3362	-99%
1915	4094	0.002234192	14	4080	-99%
1916	4228	0.002185674	18	4210	-99%
1917	4300	0.002142768	12	4288	-99%
1918	4326	0.001992527	30	4296	-99%
1919	3934	0.001864237	24	3910	-99%
1920	4025	0.001778893	22	4003	-99%
1921	4222	0.001808522	24	4198	-99%
1922	4021	0.001756543	31	3990	-98%
1923	3944	0.001712933	29	3915	-99%
1924	3910	0.001641745	36	3874	-98%
1925	3795	0.001626448	34	3761	-98%
1926	3517	0.001531863	32	3485	-98%
1927	3635	0.001567242	29	3606	-98%
1928	3630	0.001605539	33	3597	-98%
1929	3498	0.001595692	33	3465	-98%
1930	3578	0.001609328	36	3542	-98%
1931	3513	0.001669386	24	3489	-99%
1932	3627	0.001717917	20	3607	-99%
1933	3575	0.001788008	26	3549	-99%
1934	4127	0.00198719	20	4107	-99%
1935	4939	0.002363303	32	4907	-99%
1936	5840	0.002810989	40	5800	-99%
1937	7142	0.003352057	47	7095	-99%
1938	9132	0.004127323	58	9074	-99%
1939	10910	0.004951385	81	10829	-99%
1940	13308	0.005779461	80	13228	-99%
1941	16031	0.006579849	97	15934	-99%
1942	21885	0.008011324	156	21729	-99%
1943	24933	0.008833483	188	24745	-98%
1944	26885	0.009994215	168	26717	-99%
1945	30060	0.011331129	158	29902	-99%
1946	41361	0.012944422	169	41192	-99%
1947	50675	0.014067558	173	50502	-99%
1948	52736	0.015274702	170	52566	-99%
1949	60234	0.017285082	188	60046	-99%
1950	65316	0.018643774	179	65137	-99%
1951	72975	0.019810133	172	72803	-100%
1952	79228	0.020860421	190	79038	-100%
1953	84433	0.021910094	232	84201	-99%
1954	88779	0.022302449	216	88563	-100%
1955	88605	0.022068318	250	88355	-99%
1956	90932	0.022054611	239	90693	-99%
1957	93031	0.022139369	254	92777	-99%
1958	90909	0.021989241	295	90614	-99%
1959	85534	0.020577278	285	85249	-99%
1960	84469	0.020334763	316	84153	-99%
1961	87275	0.021070978	325	86950	-99%
1962	85390	0.021163268	355	85035	-99%
1963	84149	0.021258703	377	83772	-99%
1964	82920	0.021329552	303	82617	-99%
1965	81356	0.022440057	355	81001	-99%
1966	80333	0.023113612	346	79987	-99%
1967	82784	0.024384934	373	82411	-99%
1968	82444	0.024403535	471	81973	-99%
1969	85620	0.024636375	458	85162	-99%
1970	85727	0.023770124	457	85270	-99%
1971	78042	0.02273763	459	77583	-99%
1972	71838	0.022856375	452	71386	-99%
1973	68261	0.022626566	451	67810	-99%
1974	68066	0.022390131	525	67541	-98%
1975	68979	0.022845471	557	68422	-98%
1976	67433	0.022223489	515	66918	-98%
1977	68152	0.021455655	560	67592	-98%
1978	67680	0.021324461	545	67135	-98%
1979	68274	0.02052143	554	67720	-98%
1980	69233	0.020099638	546	68687	-98%
1981	69252	0.020018883	487	68765	-99%
1982	68807	0.019614641	576	68231	-98%
1983	68573	0.019800039	577	67996	-98%
1984	68250	0.019563409	508	67742	-99%
1985	65461	0.018341681	531	64930	-98%
1986	64817	0.018222654	590	64227	-98%
1987	64207	0.017808121	544	63663	-98%
1988	64643	0.017495381	480	64163	-99%
1989	65772	0.017108824	363	65409	-99%
1990	65590	0.016595623	277	65313	-99%
1991	61070	0.015678722	267	60803	-99%
1992	54657	0.014229592	258	54399	-99%
1993	49785	0.013205097	223	49562	-99%
1994	44662	0.012014049	192	44470	-99%
1995	41575	0.011353023	167	41408	-99%
1996	38526	0.010563623	157	38369	-99%
1997	37699	0.010397911	142	37557	-99%
1998	36745	0.009990245	128	36617	-99%
1999	34036	0.009214489	123	33913	-99%
2000	32156	0.008507349	114	32042	-99%
2001	29784	0.007956688	96	29688	-99%
2002	28352	0.007584535	95	28257	-99%
2003	27220	0.00715936	94	27126	-99%
2004	25617	0.00670491	148	25469	-99%
2005	23887	0.006213216	61	23826	-99%
2006	22713	0.005741703	64	22649	-99%
2007	22071	0.005521536	51	22020	-100%
2008	20700	0.005267044	55	20645	-99%
2009	19002	0.004975005	45	18957	-100%
2010	17413	0.004712398	37	17376	-100%
2011	16857	0.004609323	36	16821	-100%
2012	16234	0.004439586	27	16207	-100%
2013	15575	0.004273209	39	15536	-99%
2014	15528	0.004190622	35	15493	-100%
2015	14521	0.003924755	36	14485	-100%
2016	14163	0.003861736	34	14129	-100%
2017	12749	0.003566436	34	12715	-99%
2018	11760	0.003346471	20	11740	-100%
2019	10637	0.003066486	33	10604	-99%
2020	9843	0.002948909	24	9819	-100%
2021	9147	0.002702466	25	9122	-99%
2022	8895	0.002632739	19	8876	-100%
2023	8403	0.00254849	20	8383	-100%