by Michele Schrier

Created on: December 31, 2007

Michelle is the female version of Michael, and Michael is after the Archangel Michael. The Hebrew and French origins of this name come mostly from the book of Daniel. Archangel Michael has had a very important role in the creation of the world and the battle between good and evil, but he has a lot more work to do in the end times.

The four responsibilities Archangel Michael has as laid out in the Bible and other historical documents are as follows:

- Battle Satan
o Over the body of Moses and Eve
- Present at Christian's death
o In the hour of death Michael will claim the soul of a Christian.
- He is the General in charge of the heavenly angels against all forces of evil.
o Assists with demon exorcism
- He is also present during a soul's judgment to where his or her eternal residence will be determined.

Michelle means "Gift of God" and "Who is like God". Which means she has some big shoes to fill because each must protect, inspire faith, enforce the will of God, be Christ like and be perfection.

The popularity of Michelle is fluctuating but consistently in the top 100 girl names for most of the 1900's and the 2000's.

2000-2006- 33,376 (.2381% of 14,020,114 girls born)
1990-1999- 86,440 (.4405% of 20,528,297 girls born)
1980-1989- 153,877(.8347% of 18,435,121 girls born)
1970-1979- 249,026(1.537% of 16,451,180 girls born)
1960-1969- 208,204(1.1019% of 18,894,292 girls born)
1950-1959- 46,769 (.2371 of 19,724,480 girls born)

The popularity spiked in 1960's when The Beetles released "Michelle" a song that Paul McCartney had wrote. This song won the Grammy Award in 1966 and it is the 42nd-most performed song of the 20th century. The Beetles were most popular from 1960 to 1970 which are the years that Michelle was more popular. As the Beetles fans grew out of child bearing age range the popularity declined.

One of the famous landmarks of the world, Mont Saint-Michel is a castle in Normandy, France named after St. Michael (Archangel Michael). This castle is on a tidal island, it is only an island when the tide is high. This structure has stood since 460 AD, and Mont Saint-Michel has lasted through many wars.

A few famous Michelle's are: Michelle Pfeiffer (Famous Movie Actress), Michelle Williams (Famous Television and Movie Actress), Michelle Branch (Singer), Michelle Obama (Wife of Democratic Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama), and Michelle Kwan (Two Olympic Medal winner Figure Skater).
Plenty of characters were named Michelle. One example was Michelle Taylor from Full House. Michelle Taylor is the youngest of three daughters of Danny Taylor, a widower and sports reporter. Michelle Taylor, played by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, is babied, spoiled and has everybody wrapped around her tiny little pinky. That is a Michelle for you!

Hurricane Michelle in 2001 was a Category 4 when it hit Cuba. This was the worst hurricane Cuba had seen since Hurricane Fox in 1952. Hurricane Michelle killed 17 people in Honduras, Cuba, Nicaragua and Jamaica and caused millions of dollars worth of damage not only where all of the victims lived but also in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands and Florida.

Other spellings for Michelle: Michele (popularity fluctuates on this spelling too and is supposed to be the Gentile version), Michella, Michell, Michela, Michala, Michaela, Mikaela just to name a few. Many of the variations derived from being translated to different languages. The most popular version has been Michelle dominantly because of The Beetles song because Michele was more popular before the song was released.

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