Micael
Masculine · “Hebrew”
Michael is a question. Mi-cha-el asks who is like God, and the expected answer is nobody. Hebrew has a small set of names built this way, as rhetorical questions with the answer left out, and this is by far the most successful of them.
How old is the name Micael?
Micael first appears in US birth records in 1948 — 77 years ago. The typical Micael alive today was born around 1986, making them about 39 years old. About 700 people named Micael are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Micael most popular?
Micael peaked in 1959, reaching #1865 nationally. Today it ranks #8910, 7,045 places below that high. See the whole 1959 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mikhael to Micael
The story of Micael
Interrogative names are rare in any tradition and Hebrew has a handful. Michael asks who is like God. Micaiah, borne by a prophet in 1 Kings, asks the same thing with a different divine element. The form is not a boast about the child; it is a liturgical formula, the kind of thing said in worship rather than in conversation, and it makes the child's name a small piece of theology. Michael is also the only archangel named in the Hebrew Bible alongside Gabriel, appears in Daniel as the guardian of Israel, and in Revelation leads the armies of heaven, which gave him a cult across the whole Christian world and made the name one of the two or three most used in Europe. The question in it has been invisible to most speakers for centuries.
Meaning
Hebrew, who is like God?
Micael is a spelling of Michael, Hebrew Mikha'el, formed from mi, who, kha, like, and el, God: who is like God. It is a rhetorical question expecting the answer none. The h in the standard English spelling represents the Greek chi. Micael without it is the Portuguese and Scandinavian form and also an American respelling. The peak of this spelling is 1959.
How the name formed
- Mikhael
- Michael
- Micael
Related forms: Micael · Michael · Mikael
Pronouncing Micael
MY-kul
Two syllables, stress on the first. Portuguese Micael is three syllables, mee-kah-EL, with final stress. Both are heard in the United States.
Nicknames for Micael
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
- 1948
- Most boys named
- 201621 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1865reached in 1959
- Change vs 2024
- −20.0%8 in 2025, from 10
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.
Micael in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Micael in Portuguese — same name
- Michael in English — spelling variant
- Mikael in Swedish — same name
Micaels among us
people named Micael are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 213,510 born in 2025 was named Micael
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Micael
- #8910
- Micael on the 2025 chart
- #666
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Micael went to 8 boys in 2025, but Mikael, Mikhael and Mikaeel and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 272, which makes it the 666th most-given boys’ name of the year — 8,244 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 6,280 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 213,510 for Micael itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Stirling test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Micael's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Stirling climbed just as high around 1942, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Stirling's path sketches the road Micael is walking now.
Micael sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Micael beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Micael in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Mike is available as a short form and is universally understood.
- It matches the standard Portuguese and Scandinavian spelling.
- The name is recognized in every European language.
- Michael is overwhelmingly the standard American spelling.
- Portuguese and English stress it completely differently.
- It will be corrected to Michael by most systems.
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Micael
Masculine · #8910 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Micaels are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Micael are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Micael?
- Micael is one of 6 recorded spellings. Mikael is the more common one — 176 births in 2025 against 8 for Micael.
- How popular is the name Micael in 2025?
- Micael ranks #8910 among US boy names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Micael?
- About 1 in every 213,510 US boys born in 2025 was named Micael — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Micael with classmates?
- Micael will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Micael
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Davie#8910 · Ned#8910 · Darious#8910 · Alois#8910 · Len#8910 · Barton#8910 · Desmon#8910 · Winfield#8910
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Micael? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Micael and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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