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Michał

From Hebrew, and really a question rather than a statement: "who is like God?" Nearly half a million Polish men carry it, though it's given far less now than in the 2000s.

Michał Pronunciation

Michał is pronounced MEE-khahw (/ˈmixaw/).

Alive in 2025
492,287
Newborns 2025
1,652
National rank
#11

What Michał means

Where Michał comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.

Michał comes from Hebrew. The name was built as a question, mi-ka-El, and the answer it expects is silence: who is like God? For centuries it belonged first to an archangel, Michael, who leads the heavenly host in the Book of Daniel and again in Revelation. Polish keeps the question in its own words, któż jak Bóg.

The root traveled and split into forms. Michalina carries it across to a daughter, while the eastern variant Mykhail holds the same sound in a different mouth. On the register of a Polish school class you will still find several boys answering to it.

Michał has his name day on the twenty-ninth of September, the feast of Michael the Archangel. The meaning has not drifted. To ask who is like God is still to answer that no one is.

How many people are named Michał

1 in 43 men in Poland is named Michał. 492,287 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #11 among male names.

People with the name Michał 2019 → 2025
492,287 +5,551 since 2019
2020 487,939 +1,203
2021 489,507 +1,568
2022 490,588 +1,081
2023 491,591 +1,003
2024 492,095 +504
2025 492,287 +192

Michał's popularity over time

1,652 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #48 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000. Still the #11 name among living men, even as it slips to #48 among newborns.

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1,652 newborns with the name Michał in 2025
national rank #48 that year

Where Michał is most popular

Michał is most popular in Podlaskie, 39% above the national average (814 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Subcarpathian (+35%) and Opole (+34%). It is least common in Łódź and Greater Poland, 26% and 21% below average respectively.

More common than average Less common than average

Michał as a middle name

Michał is a first name for 492,287 men in Poland and a middle name for another 235,734, a 68/32 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 11th, between Marek (248,808) and Jerzy (196,547).

As a first name
492,287
As a middle name
235,734
first name 68% middle name 32%
Middle-name ranking men

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