The September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 were the deadliest terrorist attacks in world history. They were orchestrated by the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda.
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.
Source: Anderson, Curt. “FBI: Hate Crimes Vs. Muslims Rise.” AP News 25 Nov. 2002.