The September 11 terrorist attacks, which took place in the northeastern United States in 2001, qualify as the deadliest terrorist attack in world history. They were orchestrated by the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden.
One “consequence of the fear and suspicion that followed” the attacks was a spike in the number of hate crimes against Muslim Americans.
Did the event, and the ensuing Islamophobia, have any influence on the usage of the baby name Mohammed — the name of the Islamic prophet — among American Muslims?
Let’s check the data. Here are all of the variants of Mohammed I could find, and the total number of U.S. baby boys given each variant per year from 2000 to 2004:
| 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | |
| Mohamed | 498 | 541 | 453 | 480 | 484 |
| Mohammed | 430 | 491 | 386 | 349 | 349 |
| Mohammad | 508 | 470 | 422 | 395 | 340 |
| Muhammad | 303 | 339 | 284 | 306 | 296 |
| Mohamad | 99 | 125 | 88 | 87 | 94 |
| Muhammed | 83 | 57 | 51 | 48 | 68 |
| Mouhamed | 15 | 25 | 22 | 19 | 18 |
| Muhamed | 24 | 12 | 27 | 15 | 18 |
| Muhamad | 13 | 7 | 13 | . | 8 |
| Mouhamad | 6 | . | 6 | 8 | 5 |
| Mohamud | 5 | . | 8 | 9 | 6 |
| TOTAL | 1,984 | 2,067 | 1,760 | 1,716 | 1,686 |
So it seems that the attacks did indeed have a negative influence upon the usage of the name among American Muslims, though only for a few years.
Other Muslim names were also used less often after 9/11, including the names of some of the hijackers — names like Abdulaziz, Khalid, and Ahmed. Speaking of Islamist jihadists…the baby names Islam and Jihad likewise saw drops in usage.
Sources:
- Anderson, Curt. “FBI: Hate Crimes Vs. Muslims Rise.” AP News 25 Nov. 2002.
- SSA
Image: Adapted from Qur’an 6643102 (public domain) by Alexander Cook (U.S. DoD)
