Mikhail

Where Mikhail comes from

Mikhail hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

Along the way
  1. 1814
    Mikhail Bakunin born
    Russian revolutionary anarchist and philosopher
  2. 1931
    Mikhail Gorbachev born
    leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991
  3. 1968
    First appearance
    #4,136 among boys, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  4. 1990
    Peak, #949
    119 babies named Mikhail — more than any year before or since.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Mikhail Gorbachev · leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, 1931–2022
  • Mikhail Bakunin · Russian revolutionary anarchist and philosopher, 1814–1876
  • Mikhail Lermontov · Russian writer, poet and painter, 1814–1841
  • Mikhail Bulgakov · Russian author, 1891–1940
  • Mikhail Sholokhov · Soviet writer, 1905–1984

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.