How did Muhammad become the UK's most popular boys' name?

Name with roots in Islam and the Middle East has a surprisingly long history in Britain

Muhammad has become England's most popular baby name in the past year, according to the country's official statistics office. Photo: Isabel Pavia

Muhammad has officially taken the top spot in England as the most popular baby boys' name for the first time.

The UK's statistics agency, the ONS, revealed there there were 4,177 boys named Muhammad registered in 2023. Noah, 2022’s most popular boys’ name, came in second, while Oliver was third.

So, what is behind the name's rise in Britain?

Historical factors

Britain's Muslim population stands at nearly four million, or about six per cent of the UK as a whole. While the name's popularity is clearly linked to inward migration, its history on the official UK register goes back more than a century.

Mohammed, spelt with an o, first appeared in the top 100 in the 1920s, when it ranked as the 91st most popular name for baby boys. It has featured in the top 100 most popular names for baby boys every decade since.

Britain first experienced a significant influx of Muslim immigrants in the late 1800s, particularly in the port cities such as London, Cardiff and Liverpool. Many of these arrivals were from Yemen and Egypt, although their numbers remained in the thousands.

"There were Muslim seamen in Britain in the 19th century and into the 20th, with little enclaves dotted around various coastal towns," David Coleman, a University of Oxford professor who specialises in the demographic consequences of migration and the demography of ethnic minorities, told The National.

But for decades their numbers remained tiny, when "all kinds of curious episodes" led to migration to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, said Prof Coleman. They included the creation of the Mangla Dam in the Mirpur district of Pakistan, which diverted water, forcing around 100,000 people to leave. Thousands moved to the UK at the time. To this day, around two thirds of Britain’s Pakistani community, which is about one million people, have roots in the Mirpur region.

"That was possible because of the 1948 British Nationality Act, which the British government passed, which had confirmed the entitlement of all British subjects to enter the UK without let or hindrance," said Prof Coleman. "There had been an assumption that it was the case dating to the Second World War, but the Labour government had confirmed it as an absolute entitlement, not really keeping in mind the fact that there were 900 million people potentially entitled to do that."

The Shah Jahan mosque in Woking is the UK's oldest mosque. Victoria Pertusa / The National

Few expected that there was going to be any large influx of people from Asia, from Muslim countries, or anywhere else. The rule was primarily introduced to ensure that people from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada who had close personal links with Britain are always able to come back again, he said. And the fact that people started to come from, first the West Indies and then Asia, was something of a bit of a shock.

"Eventually, later on in the 1960s, employers realised this was actually a benefit for them because there were a number of failing industries in the north and Midlands, particularly to do with ironwork, particularly to do with textiles, where the wages were low, the profits were low and it was difficult to attract local people to do the work, especially on night shifts," said Prof Coleman.

At the start, it was mostly West Indians, but as the 1960s progressed, migrants became predominantly Asian. "To begin with, the birth rates among Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who were 80 per cent or 90 per cent were very high," said Prof Coleman. They have now moderated to a lower level but that made an additional contribution to the numbers. Migration flows have since become more diverse, with asylum seekers from conflict zones, such as Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking refuge in Britain.

It is no surprise, then, that Muhammad has become the most popular name, said Prof Coleman.

An ONS representative told The National that Muhammad has been in the top 10 most popular boys’ names since 2016, and in the top 100 since 1997. However, they noted that many other top 10 boys’ and girls’ names have non-British origins, including Freya (Scandinavia), Leo, Luca and Isabella (Italy), and Noah (Hebrew).

Variety of spellings

Muhammad has been the UK's most popular for some time if all spelling variations are taken into account, including Mohammad and Mohammed. Analysis shows that in total there were 7,362 babies born with the four most popular variations of the name, or about one in 42 boys.

The spelling Muhammad has enjoyed a nine-fold rise in popularity since the ONS began releasing annual data in the 1990s. In that same period, the variation Mohammed, meanwhile, has halved in prevalence since peaking in the late noughties with 1,644 registrations.

"The different spellings represent different transliterations of the name Muhammad from Arabic into different alphabets and different dialects – Mohammed tends to come from the Middle East, for example, whereas Muhammad tends to come from Pakistan", Dr Rebecca Gregory, a historical linguistics expert from the University of Nottingham, told The National.

"This might tell us something about the cultural origins of parents who use these spellings, but it may be more complicated than that. For example, parents may consider the form of a name which is best known in England and Wales, or most common among the people they know, or they may have no spelling preference at all."

It must be noted that the ONS only records names as they are entered on their birth certificate, meaning names can appear on the list more than once if they are shortened – known as hypocoristic naming. For example in 2022, Theo was the eighth most popular name, while Theodore, was ninth. If both were combined they would be the most popular boy's name in England and Wales.

Keeping to tradition

An estimated 150 million people have the name worldwide because of its significance within Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. As with elsewhere, Muslims living in England and Wales name their boys Muhammad out of respect for Islam, but increasingly as a way to remind children of their heritage as they grow up in a non-Muslim country.

Dr Gregory said parents can choose to use naming as a way to assert their cultural identity. She referred to a study in the US that found first-generation immigrants tended to use names which aligned more with names common in their newly adopted country, but second-generation parents chose to use names strongly associated with their families' Ethiopian roots.

While British Muslims often select names traditional to them, the same is not quite as true for British society as a whole. Statistics show that given names such as Henry, David and Albert have fallen out of favour in the past century, with more modern names such as Arlo now in the top 20.

Between 1996 and 2015 there was a 66 per cent increase in the number of unique names used for baby boys, from 16,817 names to 27,870 names.

The number of live births have fallen considerably in Britain since the 1990s. There were 591,000 births recorded in Britain in 2023, the lowest figure since 1940 when the UK's population was significantly smaller. Data shows just 310,000 boys were born in 2022, compared to almost 375,000 one decade earlier.

Muhammad has continued its steady climb up the rankings while fewer children are being born. For example, more than 10,000 boys were given the names Jack and Daniel in 1996, more than double the figure of the most popular name in 2023.

Olympic champion Mo Farah has helped popularise the name in Britain. AP

Cultural factors

Experts also say the name remains ever popular in Britain owing to a number of important sporting and cultural figures who share the name. These include Muhammad Ali, Mohamed Farah and Mohamed Salah.

"Names have always followed fashion and cultural trends, and well-known figures will inspire many baby names. In the case of Muhammad, the name itself will always be popular in Muslim communities because of its namesake, but spelling variations may be influenced by famous bearers of the name", said Dr Gregory.