Michelle
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Female form of Michel; Heb
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/mɪʃɛl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Michelle is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 34th most common given name.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 224(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 242
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 273
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #77 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 669 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 224 (inferred from the name graph)
757,098 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Female form of Michel; Heb. 'Who is like God?'.
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Michelle counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #34 | 757,098 | 1 in 439 | 756K | Michelle | 669 |
| PH Philippines | #21 | ≈300,000 est. | ≈1 in 362 | — | Michelle | 207 |
| GB United Kingdom | #46 | ≈230,000 est. | ≈1 in 282 | — | Michelle | 378 |
| CA Canada | #29 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 296 | 16 | Michelle | 354 |
| AU Australia | #21 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 224 | 88 | Michelle | 327 |
| IE Ireland | #25 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 242 | — | Michelle | 166 |
| NZ New Zealand | #29 | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 273 | — | Michelle | 196 |
757,098 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Michelle is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, French feminine form of Michael; popular among modern Irish parents.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, French feminine of Michael; "who is like God?"
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
A French feminine version of Michael which seems popular amongst modern Irish parents. Michele is an alternative 86 Monica spelling. Michaela, another feminine form of Michael, also occurs.
as a nameIrish first names
French feminine form of Michel, the French form of }Michael. This name is now also used extensively in the Englishspeaking world (partly influenced by a Beatles song with this name as its title). Short forms: Chelle, Shell. 173
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In French, from the female personal name Michelle, feminine form of Michel, French form of Michael.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Michelle Yeohb. 1962MYMalaysian actress (born 1962)
- Michelle Obamab. 1964USlawyer and former First Lady of the United States (2009-2017)
- Michelle Monaghanb. 1976USAmerican actress
- Jessica Chastainb. 1977USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and producer (born 1977)
- Ginnifer Goodwinb. 1978USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Michelle Rodriguezb. 1978USAmerican actress
- Michelle Williamsb. 1980USAmerican actress (born 1980)
- Ashley Tisdaleb. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and singer (born 1985)
- Amanda Seyfriedb. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1985)
- Tori Blackb. 1988USnot in their usual nameAmerican pornographic actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 132 sources across 72 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 756K | #42 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.3K | #42 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 661 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 110 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2000 | 88 | #85 |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 16 | #254 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 1994 | 5 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Michelle come from?
- Female form of Michel; Heb. 'Who is like God?'. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
- Is Michelle a male or female name?
- Michelle is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Michelle have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 757 thousand people named Michelle, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled michelle.
- What does the name Michelle mean?
- Recorded meaning: Female form of Michel; Heb.
- What are other forms of the name Michelle?
- In the etymology graph, Michele, Micaela and Michaela are forms of the same name in other languages; Micheline, Chelle and Michelyne are recorded short or pet forms.
- How common is the name Michelle?
- In the United States, the national register counted 757,098 people named Michelle in 2020, about 1 in 439 residents.
- How common is Michelle compared with other names?
- In the United States, Michelle is the 34th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Michelle?
- A machine transcription gives /mɪʃɛl/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Michelle?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/michelleThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Michelle” — the 34th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.