Given name & surname
Michelena
“house of Michael/Miguel”
Michelena is a surname from Basque. It is used in Spanish and Tagalog.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Michelena goes back to Basque Mitxelena, meaning “house of Michael/Miguel.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
In Filipino usage, Michelena as a surname developed from Mitxelena.
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1917. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Michelena through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 79
- 0 boys · 79 girls
- Most popular year
- 1920
- 12 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for girls is 5 in 1992. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for girls was 12 in 1920. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 138 as a first name in 2020; 436 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Michelena’s family of names
In Filipino usage, Michelena as a surname developed from the Basque form Mitxelena. In Spanish usage, Michelena as a surname was borrowed from the Basque form Mitxelena.
Inner ring: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 1
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
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