Michel

given name · Latin script

Meaning: Name of Hebraic origin, Michael = “Someone who is like God”

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/miʃɛl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Michel is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country, where it is the 8th most common given name.

rarermore common
  • FRFrance≈1 in 225(inferred from the name graph)
  • BEBelgium≈1 in 281
  • CMCameroon≈1 in 466

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.

France (inferred from the name graph)

≈300,000 people, est.

#816 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
465 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 225 (inferred from the name graph)

France, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

MichelLatin(measured from records)
ΜισέλGreek(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)

Name of Hebraic origin, Michael = “Someone who is like God”.

Sources 1

  • The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History

Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Michel 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.

Where Michel is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FR France#8≈300,000 est.≈1 in 225821KMichel465
BR Brazil—78,6541 in 2.7K79K—4
CN China—≈75,000 est.≈1 in 19K—Michel28
CM Cameroon#11≈59,000 est.≈1 in 466—Michel62
BE Belgium#10≈42,000 est.≈1 in 2815.7KMichel202
CA Canada#200≈39,000 est.≈1 in 9571Michel275
CH Switzerland#62≈14,000 est.≈1 in 6176.5KMichel148

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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Michel is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name20 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Míchel, Mïchël, Michël, M'Ichel, Michél

  • English given name48 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Germany, Netherlands, Canada

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Michél, Michèl, Miche'L, Míchel, Mi'Chel

  • a separate name9 spellings in the group

    Also written Michél, Michěl, Micheľ, Michėl, Michèl

  • Polish given name11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, Slovakia, Canada, Netherlands

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Micheľ, Michél, Míčhěl, Mîçhěľ, Míchel

  • Finnish given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Switzerland, Belgium, United States, Sweden

    Also written Michèl

  • Indonesian given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Philippines, United States, Canada

    Also written 'Michel

121 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Michel 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 French, From Hebrew Mikha'el, “Who is like God?”; Saint Michael the Archangel, feast day 29 Sept.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

  • In French, French form of Michael, from Hebrew Mikha'el ‘Who is like God?’

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In German, Toponymic surname from a dwelling/landscape feature; bearers 85.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte

  • shortened form of any of various patronymic derivatives of Michael, for example Micheiakis, Michelakakis, or Michelakos.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • Biblical. See English Michael in main dictionary. Feminine forms: Michéle, Michelle. Micheline @ Pet form of MICHELE.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first 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)

1850190019502000Michel Fokine, b. 1880Leopold III of Belgium, b. 1901Michel Debré, b. 1912Jacques Chaban-Delmas, b. 1915Omar Sharif, b. 1932Michel Mayor, b. 1942Michel Kafando, b. 1942Alexandre Desplat, b. 1961Michel Gondry, b. 1963Michel Hazanavicius, b. 1967

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)

InformalBonjour Michel,Hi Michel, (English)

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 131 sources across 68 countries.

Official registers attesting Michel
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19918.2K—
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20246.5K#66
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)20085.7K#80
BE BelgiumStatbel — Noms de famille (family names)—5.2K#88

Reference works 12

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

What does the name Michel mean, and where does it come from?
Name of Hebraic origin, Michael = “Someone who is like God”. Recorded by The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History.
Is Michel a male or female name?
Michel 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.
What are other forms of the name Michel?
In the etymology graph, Michael, Miguel and Mike are forms of the same name in other languages.
How do you pronounce Michel?
A machine transcription gives /miʃɛl/ (IPA) for French.
In which country does Michel have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 301 thousand people named Michel in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled michel.
How common is the name Michel?
In Brazil, the national register counted 78,654 people named Michel in 2022, about 1 in 2.7 thousand residents.
How common is Michel compared with other names?
In France, Michel is the 8th most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Michel?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/michel

The 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, “Michel” — the 8th most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Michel parses inside a full name →