Michal
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Michal 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 2nd most common given name. Recorded meaning: A name of Hebrew origin meaning 'Who is like God?'.
- CZCzechia1 in 43(measured from records)
- FIFinland1 in 52as Mikael
- IEIreland≈1 in 69as Michael
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Michal itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #3 (measured from records)
- 10 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 726 (measured from records)
- 1 in 43 (inferred from the name graph)
3,476,721 named Michael, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Czechia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
8 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Michael in US United States, GB United Kingdom, DE Germany and 2 more, Михаил in RU Russia and Mikael in FI Finland.
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)
A name of Hebrew origin meaning 'Who is like God?' or 'Brook'; it implies strength and connection to the divine.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 23 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Michal 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 | #2 | 3,476,721as Michael | 1 in 96 | 3.5M | Michael | 726 |
| RU Russia | #22 | ≈1,600,000 est. | ≈1 in 89 | #8 | Михаил | 272 |
| DE Germany | #2 | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 71 | listed | Michael | 389 |
| GB United Kingdom | #3 | ≈900,000 est. | ≈1 in 73 | 626 | Michael | 482 |
| NG Nigeria | #13 | ≈710,000 est. | ≈1 in 300 | — | Michael | 200 |
| CZ Czechia | #3 | 246,648 | 1 in 43 | 247K | Michal | 211 |
| FI Finland | #144 | 106,915as Mikael | 1 in 52 | 133K | Mikael | 112 |
| IE Ireland | #3 | ≈75,000 est. | ≈1 in 69 | — | Michael | 225 |
3,476,721 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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); MVČR — living population register 2017; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Michal 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.
Michal is often interpreted as a tragic figure caught between loyalty to her father's house and her husband. Her childlessness is viewed theologically as the end of the Saulide dynasty's legitimacy or as divine judgment for despising the worship of Yahweh.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In French, Biblical/Slavic form of Michael; 'Who is like God?'.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Biblical name (meaning ‘brook’ in Hebrew) borne by a daughter of Saul who married King David. It is probably through confusion with this name that Michael has occasionally been used as a girl’s name in the English-speaking world.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A daughter of Saul and wife of David in the Old Testament.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Michal är en polsk och tjeckisk form av → Mikael.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
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)
- Michał Korybut Wiśniowieckib. 1640UAnot in their usual nameKing of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1669-1673)
- Michał Jerzy Poniatowskib. 1736PLnot in their usual nameCatholic archbishop (1736-1794)
- Casimir Pulaskib. 1745USnot in their usual namePolish nobleman, general in the American Revolutionary War
- Michał Rola-Żymierskib. 1890PLnot in their usual nameMarshal of Poland (1890-1989)
- Bogdan Borusewiczb. 1949PLnot in their usual namePolish politician (born 1949)
- Michał Żebrowskib. 1972PLnot in their usual namePolish actor
- Michal Kadlecb. 1984CZCzech association football player (1984-)
- Michał Pazdanb. 1987PLnot in their usual namePolish association football player
- Michał Skóraśb. 2000PLnot in their usual namePolish association football player
- M. ValkoSKnot in their usual nameFranco-Slovak Artificial Intelligence scientist
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 90 sources across 43 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 878 | #26,191 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 865 | #27,783 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 769 | #32,142 |
Reference works 6
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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
- Is Michal a male or female name?
- Michal is a male 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.
- Where does the name Michal come from?
- A name of Hebrew origin meaning 'Who is like God?' or 'Brook'; it implies strength and connection to the divine. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What does the name Michal mean?
- Recorded meaning: A name of Hebrew origin meaning 'Who is like God?'
- In which country does Michal have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 3.5 million people named Michael, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Michal most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Michal is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 43 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Michal?
- In the etymology graph, Michael, Miguel and Mike are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Michal?
- In Czechia, the national register counted 246,648 people named Michal, about 1 in 43 residents.
- How common is Michal compared with other names?
- In the United States, Michal is the 2nd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Michal?
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/michalThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Michal” — the 2nd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.