Michael: boys named per year, 1880 to 2025
Michael: boys named per year stood at 8,094 in 2025, down 1.6% on the previous period.
8,094 American boys were named Michael in 2025. The name's recorded peak is 92,781 in 1957; the series runs from 1880.
How it is measured
The counts come from Social Security card applications, tabulated by the SSA by year of birth, name, and sex. It is administrative data, not a survey: every point is actual registrations. Two caveats shape the edges: names with fewer than five occurrences in a year are withheld for privacy, and the earliest decades undercount births because Social Security began in 1935 and older people applied late or never.
What the curve shows
Name data is one of the cleanest cultural time series in existence, and the curves behave like fashion: a rise usually has a traceable trigger, a famous namesake or a character, and the decay is slow because names linger in families after they leave the zeitgeist. Michael is past its peak, running at roughly 9 percent of its 1957 high.
Does this count everyone with the name?
Why do old names look rarer than they were?
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