Macayla
Feminine · “who is like God?”
Three letters at the front turn a Hebrew name into a Scottish-looking one. Mac is the Gaelic word for son, and any name beginning with it reads as a Highland surname to an English eye, whatever follows. What follows here is a feminine form of an angel's name from a Jewish text, which is a considerable distance to travel in one syllable.
How old is the name Macayla?
Macayla first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Macayla alive today was born around 2002, making them about 23 years old. About 2,200 people named Macayla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Macayla most popular?
Macayla peaked in 1998, reaching #1322 nationally. See the whole 1998 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mikha'el to Macayla
The story of Macayla
Angels are almost never named in the Hebrew Bible. There are a great many of them and they do a great deal, but they arrive, act and leave anonymously through nearly the whole text; only two are given names, both of them in the same late book, and both names are constructed the same way, ending in the element for God. Everything else — the enormous catalogs of angelic names, the hierarchies, the specific duties — comes from later Jewish and Christian writing outside the canon. So the name is one of a pair, and the pair is the entire set. That is a much smaller and stranger inheritance than the modern idea of angels suggests.
Meaning
who is like God?
The base name is a question rather than a statement, and the expected answer is nobody. Hebrew names of this shape are common and the construction is not in doubt; the feminine ending is a later European addition.
How the name formed
- Mikha'el
- Michael
- Michaela
- Macayla
Pronouncing Macayla
muh-KAY-luh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The Mac at the front is unstressed and reduces, which is why the Scottish look is purely visual.
Nicknames for Macayla
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1984
- Most girls named
- 2000140 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1322reached in 1998
- Change vs 2023
- +20.0%6 in 2024, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Macaylas among us
people named Macayla are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Macayla sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Kayla sits inside it as a complete and independent short form.
- The rhythm is even and the name is easy to say at speed.
- It reaches back to a very old name without looking as though it does.
- This name has more recorded spellings than almost any other, and all of them get substituted.
- The Mac opening suggests an ancestry the name does not have.
- It is tied closely to the decades of its rise.
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What they receive
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Macayla
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Macaylas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Macayla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Macayla in 2025?
- Macayla is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Macayla with classmates?
- Macayla will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Mary#125 · Margaret#112 · Michelle#465 · Melissa#419 · Maria#87 · Martha#712 · Marie#617 · Mildred#1962
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Macayla? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Macayla and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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