Irish-English diminutive of Michael, from Hebrew meaning who is like God.
Mick is an Irish and British familiar form of Michael, which derives from the Hebrew 'Mikha'el,' meaning 'Who is like God?' — a rhetorical declaration of divine incomparability that became one of the most widely used names in the Christian world. While Michael was borne by archangels and emperors, Mick developed as the distinctly Irish and working-class British diminutive, shedding the name's formal grandeur in favor of a blunt, warm, democratic friendliness.
The form became so associated with Irish identity — through the stereotype of Irish immigrants in nineteenth-century Britain and America — that 'Mick' became an ethnic slur, a history the name has had to carry and, in the Irish community itself, largely reclaim through cultural pride. As a standalone name, Mick achieved its greatest cultural moment through rock and roll. Mick Jagger, born Michael Philip Jagger, made the name synonymous with a particular kind of strutting, androgynous, intellectually restless rock stardom that defined the 1960s and never entirely faded.
The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde's band (with guitarist James 'Mick' Jones) embedded the name firmly in the rock canon. Mick Dundee (from 'Crocodile Dundee') gave it an Australian adventurer gloss, while Mick Jagger's longevity as a performer has kept the name continuously visible across six decades. Today Mick sits in an interesting space: old-fashioned enough to feel vintage, short and punchy enough to feel modern, and cool enough through its rock associations to work for a child born in any decade. It is rarely given as a formal birth name — most Micks are Michaels — but as a standalone, it has a swagger that Michael, for all its biblical grandeur, simply cannot match.