How popular is the baby name Muhammad 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 Muhammad.

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Popularity of the baby name Muhammad


Posts that mention the name Muhammad

For-profit baby names

California mom-to-be Natasha Hill — the woman who was supposed to be getting $5,000 for allowing strangers to name her unborn baby via the site Belly Ballot — isn’t really pregnant. She isn’t even really named “Natasha Hill.”

Her name is Natasha Lloyd, and she’s an actress who was hired by the website’s founder to help drum up publicity.

Yep — the whole thing was a hoax. The folks at Today.com were the ones to figure it out:

When TODAY Moms first reported on the contest, some readers were incredulous; they couldn’t believe a real mom would do such a thing. Now it appears they were right.

Except…they weren’t. Several “real moms” (and dads) have indeed done such a thing. Here are all the for-profit baby names (and attempts) I know of:

*I never blogged about these three, so here are the details:

  • In 2001, Jason Black and Frances Schroeder of New York tried to auction off the name of the their third child (first son) via Yahoo and eBay. They were aiming for a corporate sponsor, so the bidding started at $500,000. No one bid. They ended up naming the baby Zane Black.
  • In 2002, Bob and Tracy Armstrong from Florida tried to auction off the name of their baby (gender unknown) via eBay. After eBay pulled the auction for the third time, they decided not to try again.
  • In 2002, Heather and Steve Johnston of Washington state tried to auction off the name of their baby boy via eBay. The bidding started at $250,000. I found no follow-up stories, so I imagine the auction was either pulled or unsuccessful.

Video games on one end, $15,000 on the other…such wildly different values placed on baby names. Kinda fascinating, isn’t it?

Sources: $5,000 online baby-name contest revealed as hoax, Mom crowdsources baby name for $5,000

Image: Adapted from $20 Federal Reserve Bank Note (1929) (public domain)

[Latest update: Dec. 2024]

Popular baby names in England and Wales (UK), 2011

Flag of the United Kingdom
Flag of the United Kingdom

According to the Office for National Statistics, the new top baby names in England and Wales are Harry and Amelia.

They beat out 2010’s top names, Oliver and Olivia.

Here are the current top 25 names for both boys and girls:

Girl Names

  1. Amelia
  2. Olivia
  3. Lily
  4. Jessica
  5. Emily
  6. Sophie
  7. Ruby
  8. Grace
  9. Ava
  10. Isabella
  11. Evie
  12. Chloe
  13. Mia
  14. Poppy
  15. Isla
  16. Ella
  17. Isabelle
  18. Sophia
  19. Freya
  20. Daisy
  21. Charlotte
  22. Maisie
  23. Lucy
  24. Phoebe
  25. Scarlett

Boy Names

  1. Harry
  2. Oliver
  3. Jack
  4. Alfie
  5. Charlie
  6. Thomas
  7. Jacob
  8. James
  9. Joshua
  10. William
  11. Ethan
  12. George
  13. Riley
  14. Daniel
  15. Samuel
  16. Noah
  17. Oscar
  18. Joseph
  19. Mohammed
  20. Max
  21. Dylan
  22. Muhammad
  23. Alexander
  24. Archie
  25. Benjamin

In Wales specifically, the top names were Oliver and Lily. In London, Daniel and Isabella.

A few other things I noticed…

Usage of Pippa increased in 2011, thanks to the royal wedding:

  • 2011: 250 baby girls named Pippa (rank: 204th)
  • 2010: 124 baby girls named Pippa (rank: 365th)
  • 2009: 125 baby girls named Pippa (rank: 351st)

Usage of another quirky P-name, Pixie, is also on the up thanks to English pop star Pixie Lott:

  • 2011: 99 baby girls named Pixie (rank: 432nd)
    • +6 named Pixie-Lou
    • +5 named Pixie-Leigh
  • 2010: 83 baby girls named Pixie (rank: 485th)
    • +3 named Pixie-Lou
    • +3 named Pixie-Rose
  • 2009: 33 baby girls named Pixie (rank: 982nd)

I also spotted 5 baby girls named Renesmee, 4 named Coraline and 4 named Io.

The most insightful article I’ve seen about this batch of names so far is Ed West’s “Britain’s divided nation is revealed in our baby names.” Some snippets:

  • “…the annually-published list does show that, for the first time in nine centuries, English people are easily identifiable by class solely by their name, since most names in the 2011 list have strong class biases either way.”
  • “Social mobility will be achieved only when we all give our children the same names.”

Have you spotted anything interesting or surprising on the England and Wales 2011 list?

Source: Baby names in England and Wales: 2011

Image: Adapted from Flag of the United Kingdom (public domain)

Highest-charting single-appearance baby names in the U.S. top 1,000

mountain peak

The baby names below, like hundreds of others, reached the U.S. top 1000 just once.

But these names are special, because they are the highest-charting single-appearance names ever. Impressively, each of the names blow ranked at least 700th (or well above!) during the single year they placed in the top 1,000.

NameRank & YearExplanation
Christop241st in 1989Typo*
Yulissa424th in 1997The 1996 telenovela Te Sigo Amando featured a character named Yulissa played by Claudia Ramírez.
Nira463rd in 1933The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) was authorized by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933.
Elizabet524th in 1989Typo*
Manilla536th in 1898The first military action of Spanish-American War was the 1898 battle for Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
Jemal549th in 1969The Outcasts (1968-1969), the first TV Western with an African-American co-star, featured a character named Jemal.
Alexande554th in 1989Typo*
Kunta572nd in 1977The 1977 miniseries Roots (based on the Alex Haley novel) featured a character named Kunta Kinte.
Shafter604th in 1898Maj. Gen. William Rufus Shafter’s forces took Santiago (and hence helped end the Spanish-American War) in 1898.
Destry636th in 1964The short-lived 1964 show Destry was a spin-off of the 1939 film “Destry Rides Again.”
Sonji638th in 1966In 1966, boxer Muhammad Ali divorced his first wife, Sonji Roi.
Sheilah665th in 1955In 1955, actor Guy Madison eloped with actress Sheilah Connolly.
Clarisa665th in 1994The 1993 Mexican telenovela Clarisa featured a main character named Clarisa. (Another possible factor: The popular Nickelodeon sitcom Clarissa Explains it All (1991-1994) won an Emmy in 1994.
Tatia670th in 1966A notable 1965 episode of the TV show I Spy (1965-1968) featured a character named Tatia Loring.
Alexandr676th in 1989Typo*
Cinnamon700th in 1969The first 3 seasons of the Mission: Impossible TV series (1966-1973) featured a character named Cinnamon Carter. (That’s what put Cinnamon on the map.) Early in 1969, “Cinnamon” by Derek (a.k.a. Johnny Cymbal) was an actual one-hit wonder that peaked at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. Later the same year, “Cinnamon Girl” by Neil Young was released.
Beyonce700th in 2001Destiny’s Child (featuring Beyoncé Knowles) won two Grammy Awards in 2001.

I didn’t include single-appearance names from the 1880s (like Manerva, Zilpah, Worley, Ambers, Orilla, and Simona), and it’s too early to include names from the 2006 data (Addisyn, Krish, Yandel, Rihanna).

*Here’s more about those typos from 1989.

Image: Adapted from Pointe de Nantaux 05 by Krzysztof Golik under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How did 9/11 affect the baby name Mohammed?

Qur'an

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:

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 effect on 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:

Image: Adapted from Qur’an 6643102 (public domain) by Alexander Cook (U.S. DoD)