How popular is the baby name Mohammad in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Mohammad.

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Popularity of the baby name Mohammad


Posts that mention the name Mohammad

Popular baby names in Israel, 2012

Flag of Israel
Flag of Israel

Israel recently released three lists of popular baby names.

According to the Central Bureau for Statistics, the country’s top names last year were:

  • Noam and Noa for Jewish babies,
  • Mohammad and Maryam for Muslim babies, and
  • George and Maria for Christian babies.

Here are more of the most popular baby names of 2012 within each religious group:

Jewish

Girl Names (Jewish)Boy Names (Jewish)
1. Noa
2. Shira
3. Tamar
4. Talia
5. Maya
6. Yael
7. Sarah
8. Adele/Edel
9. Ayala
10. Michal		1. Noam
2. Uri/Ori
3. Itai
4. Yosef
5. David
6. Yehonatan
7. Daniel
8. Ariel
9. Moshe
10. Eitan

The Jewish names above were listed in my source article, but the Muslim and Christian names below (beyond the #1 names) I had to translate from Hebrew using various online tools/dictionaries, so they might not be perfect.

Muslim

Girl Names (Muslim)Boy Names (Muslim)
1. Maryam
2. Linn
3. Rahaf
4. Lian
5. Rimas
6. Hala
7. Nur
8. Bisan
9. Malek
10. Aya		1. Mohammad
2. Ahmed
3. Mahmad
4. Yosef
5. Adam
6. Abd
7. Omar
8. Ali
9. Mahmoud
10. Amir

Christian

Girl Names (Christian)Boy Names (Christian)
1. Maria
2. Celine
3. Aline
4. Maya
5. Nur
6. Lian
7. Miriam
8. Natalie
9. Tala
10. Miral		1. George
2. Elias
3. Majd
4. Daniel
5. Joseph
6. Hana
7. Julian
8. Charbel
9. Jude
10. Emir

A few years ago, a group of Israeli rabbis released a list of names they thought should be off-limits to Jewish children. Ariel, the 8th most popular name for Jewish baby boys last year, was on their forbidden name list. :)

Sources: Noa, Noam top baby names for 2012, Central Bureau of Statistics

Image: Adapted from Flag of Israel (public domain)

Popular baby names in Norway, 2010

Flag of Norway
Flag of Norway

The top baby girl and baby boy names in Norway last year were Emma and Lukas — the same as in 2009.

Here are the top ten girl names:

  1. Emma (465 baby girls)
  2. Linnea/Linea (452)
  3. Sara/Sahra/Sarah (426)
  4. Sofie/Sophie (423)
  5. Nora/Norah (411)
  6. Ingrid/Ingerid/Ingri (399)
  7. Thea/Tea (389)
  8. Emilie (387)
  9. Ida (381)
  10. Maja/Maia/Maya (353)

And here are the top ten boy names:

  1. Lukas/Lucas (552 baby boys)
  2. Emil (492)
  3. Mathias/Matias (491)
  4. William (443)
  5. Magnus (435)
  6. Markus/Marcus (428)
  7. Jonas (423)
  8. Kristian/Christian (400)
  9. Oliver (384)
  10. Alexander/Aleksander (380)

And here are a few other interesting facts:

  • 52% of the girls born in 2010 have names that end with -a or -ah.
  • 20% of the boys born in 2010 have biblical names.
  • Mohammad was the most popular baby boy name in Oslo.
  • Norwegian parents seem to be “avoiding names involving the uniquely Norwegian letters of æ, ø and å, which often cause problems and confusion in e-mail addresses and other aspects of a globalized society.”

That last point is particularly interesting. On the one hand, it’s cool that parents are gravitating toward names that will make their children’s lives simpler. On the other, names featuring Scandinavian letters like æ, ø and å represent Norway’s heritage, and it would a shame to see cultural gems like Bjørn and Jørgen fall by the wayside. (Though perhaps it’s inevitable…?)

Sources: Statistics Norway, ‘Emma’ and ‘Lukas’ most popular baby names

Image: Adapted from Flag of Norway (public domain)

Baby names you can write with a single line in cursive: Cleo, Rhys, Edward, Ursula

Declaration of Independence (detail)

I wrote a letter to a friend not long ago, and the act of writing something longhand (which I rarely do anymore) made me wonder: which baby names can be written in cursive without lifting the pen from the page?

Turns out that many names can be written this way — so long as they don’t contain letters that need crossing/dotting (t, i, x, j) and don’t start with a tricky capital such as W or X.

Here are some examples of names that can be written in script with one continuous line of ink.

  • 3 letters: Ava, Moe, Ned, Rob, Ula
  • 4 letters: Cleo, Elmo, Jada, Rhys, Zane
  • 5 letters: Carla, Jesse, Nancy, Ryder, Yosef
  • 6 letters: Edward, Jazmyn, Morgan, Nelson, Ursula
  • 7 letters: Charles, Eleanor, Jeffrey, Malcolm, Rebecca
  • 8 letters: Alphonso, Emmanuel, Mercedes, Mohammad, Randolph
  • 9 letters: Cleveland, Esperanza, Jefferson, Magdalena, Rosabelle
  • 10 letters: Alessandra, Alessandro, Clarabella, Clarabelle, Jacquelynn

For more onomastic trivia, try this list of baby names that can be typed one-handed on a QWERTY keyboard.

Image: Adapted from United States Declaration of Independence (public domain)

How did 9/11 affect the baby name Mohammed?

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:

20002001200220032004
Mohamed498541453480484
Mohammed430491386349349
Mohammad508470422395340
Muhammad303339284306296
Mohamad99125888794
Muhammed8357514868
Mouhamed1525221918
Muhamed2412271518
Muhamad13713.8
Mouhamad6.685
Mohamud5.896
TOTAL1,9842,0671,7601,7161,686

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.