Michele

Where Michele comes from

The dictionaries list Michele as a given name — a unisex given name — but don't trace where it came from. The record below is what the SSA data shows.

  • French
  • Romance
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1915
    First appearance
    #4,274 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1931
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  3. 1946
    Michele Placido born
    Italian actor and film director
  4. 1956
    Michele Bachmann born
    American politician
  5. 1968
    Peak, #29
    11,219 babies named Michele — more than any year before or since.
  6. 1974
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #50.
In the dictionary
  • A unisex given name
  • A female given name from French [in turn from Hebrew], equivalent to English Michelle, anglicized form of French Michèle, a French spelling variant of Michelle.
  • A male given name from the Romance languages [in turn from Hebrew], equivalent to English Michael.
Namesakes
  • Michele Bachmann · American politician, born 1956
  • Michele Placido · Italian actor and film director, born 1946
  • Michele Scarponi · Italian road bicycle racer, 1979–2017
  • Michele Alboreto · Italian racecar driver, 1956–2001
  • Michele Ferrero · Italian entrepreneur, 1925–2015

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.