Mikail
Masculine · “who is like God?”
Mikail is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,228 boys against 15 girls since 1880.
Mikail is the Turkish and Bosnian shape of a name that is a question rather than a statement: who is like God? It has been asked in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic and Turkish, and it has never been answered.
How old is the name Mikail?
Mikail first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Mikail alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 1,200 people named Mikail are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mikail most popular?
Mikail peaked in 2016, reaching #2437 nationally. Today it ranks #2718, 281 places below that high. See the whole 2016 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Mikha'el to Mikail
The story of Mikail
Michael is one of the archangels, named in the book of Daniel and in the Qur'an, and that is why the name traveled so far: it belongs to Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition alike. The Arabic Mika'il carried it through the Islamic world, and Turkish, Azerbaijani, Bosnian and Albanian took Mikail from there. It reaches United States records mostly with families from Turkey, the Balkans, the Caucasus and South Asia — and it is worth knowing, when a form asks you to correct it, that this is not a misspelling of Michael but a separate and equally old road out of the same Hebrew.
Meaning
who is like God?
Hebrew mi kha'el is three words — mi, 'who'; ke, 'like'; El, 'God' — and it is a rhetorical question with an implied answer of nobody. The Arabic Mika'il and the Turkish Mikail carry the same question unchanged.
How the name formed
- Mikha'el
- Mika'il
- Mikail
Related forms: Michael · Mika'il · Mikhail · Michel · Miguel
Pronouncing Mikail
mee-kah-EEL
Three syllables in Turkish and Arabic, with the stress at the end and a small break before the last vowel. American English usually flattens it to mih-KAI-el or MY-kal. The family's saying is the one that counts.
Nicknames for Mikail
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 boys named
- 201652 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2437reached in 2016
- Change vs 2024
- +27.0%47 in 2025, from 37
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.
Mikail in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Michael in English — same name
- Mika'il in Arabic — transliteration
- Mikhail in Russian — same name
- Michel in French — same name
- Miguel in Spanish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, New York, California.
Mikails among us
people named Mikail are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 36,342 born in 2025 was named Mikail
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mikail
- #2718
- Mikail on the 2025 chart
- #792
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mikail went to 47 boys in 2025, but Mikhail and Mikayil are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 136, which makes it the 792nd most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,926 places above the chart.
- Mikhail84
- Mikail47
- Mikayil5
About 1 boy in 12,559 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 36,342 for Mikail 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 Jeston test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mikail's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jeston climbed just as high around 1984, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jeston's path sketches the road Mikail is walking now.
Mikail 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
Where Mikail is headed
Mikail should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Mikail beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mikail in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognized by Jewish, Christian and Muslim readers alike — very few names cross all three.
- Michael stands beside it as the familiar English form, which makes it easy to place.
- Its meaning is exact, undisputed, and a question rather than a boast.
- It will be read as a misspelling of Michael by people who do not know the Turkish and Arabic forms.
- Mikail, Mikael, Mikhail and Michail are separate national spellings that sound different from one another.
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What they receive
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Mikail
Masculine · #2718 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mikails are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Mikail are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mikail?
- Mikail is one of 3 recorded spellings. Mikhail is the more common one — 84 births in 2025 against 47 for Mikail.
- How popular is the name Mikail in 2025?
- Mikail ranks #2718 among US boy names in 2025, with 47 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mikail?
- About 1 in every 36,342 US boys born in 2025 was named Mikail — 47 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mikail with classmates?
- Mikail will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mikail
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Einar#2718 · Kurtis#2718 · Sasha#2718 · Jovany#2718 · Ahsan#2718 · Xavien#2718 · Yassin#2718 · Unknown#2718
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mikail? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Mikail and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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