Mohammed: No 2 in Britain

From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Wed, 2007-06-06 09:00

A quote from The [London] Times, 6 June 2007

Muhammad is now second only to Jack as the most popular name for baby boys in Britain and is likely to rise to No 1 by next year, a study by The Times has found. The name, if all 14 different spellings are included, was shared by 5,991 newborn boys last year, beating Thomas into third place, followed by Joshua and Oliver.

Half the Story...

Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Fri, 2007-06-08 02:37.

Though the massive use of the name "Muhammad" in all of its incarnations (given the phonetic nature of Farsi and Arabic nomenclature), is decidedly telling about the number of Muslims in the United Kingdom and their future growth, it is also necessary to point out that much of the deluge of immigrants consists of Blacks from Africa and the Caribbean, many of which have Anglicized names.

Watery immigrants

Submitted by Bob Doney on Mon, 2007-06-11 22:15.

"deluge of immigrants"

Why is it that immigrants always come in watery quantities: floods, tides, swamps, surges and now deluges?

Patton #2

Submitted by marcfrans on Thu, 2007-06-07 03:58.

@ Doney

Of course quantification would be difficult in this case, but I doubt very much that most people "called Muhammad" were on the Allies' side in the waning days of European colonialism.  Certainly not in WW1, and while formally 'neutral' in WW2 Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan in........February 1945 (to partake in the spoils of others' efforts).   And, if you would care to take a closer look at the media in most of the muslim world today, it would appear that most people "called Muhammad" are still on the Axis' side. 

Giant leaps and small steps

Submitted by Bob Doney on Thu, 2007-06-07 12:26.

Well, I thought it was a giant leap to go from the number of boys being called "Muhammed" in 2007 UK to General Patton. I was only trying to take a small step back!

Perhaps our next bit of valuable research should be on people called "Kim", and which side they're on.

Muhammad in Brussels

Submitted by Xavier Meulders on Wed, 2007-06-06 10:07.

One of the few advantages of the "federal system" in the baffling country of Belgium, is that the national statistic service (Statbel) also possesses regional data (not only for the whole kingdom, but also for Flanders, Wallonia and the Brussels's region). And if you visit the website of statbel (see http://www.statbel.fgov.be/figures/d22a_nl.asp?r=8), one can clearly observate the fact that Muhammad (in Belgium often spelled as 'Mohamed') is the most popular name in Brussels since the very year 2000! The latest data available (concerning boys born in 2005) show us that the five most popular names in Brussels are Mohamed, Adam (a name which also appears in the Qur'an), Ayoub, Rayan and Mehdi. Quite impressive for "the capital of Europe", isn't it? However, I've got more the impression that Brussels is more becoming the new capital of a resurrected Ottoman Empire.

And if you look at the data for the whole Belgian empire, it's very obvious that Mohamed is ranking high. Whereas Mohamed ranked only 32rd in 2000, it's the 8th most popular first name in 2005!

I do not doubt that parents are free to choose the names for their children. However, the fact that 'Mohamed' (in all it's different ways of spelling) is becoming increasingly popular across Europe marks something. To our ruling elite to find out what...