Michael is a Hebrew name, Mikha'el, meaning "who is like God?", the rhetorical question that is the battle cry of the archangel Michael. It was the most popular boys' name in the United States almost every year from 1954 to 1998, which is why so many fathers of today's babies are called Michael or Mike. The name was second in 2000, has slipped slowly since and ranks twenty-first in 2025.