A study conducted by the British newspaper The Times, revealed that Mohammed has been the most common middle name in the UK to register babies born last year.
Jack is still the most popular name followed by Mohammed, which in its various variants, displaces the more traditional ones such as Thomas, Joshua and Oliver.
If the trend continues, they ensure that in a short time it will become the most popular baby name in the country, which has already happened in Amsterdam as well as in Belgium.
The data has caught my attention and I have gone to the list of most frequent names in Spain according to the National Statistics Institute to know if the trend also follows here and sooner or later we will have Mohammed among the 20 or 10 most common names.
In the general list, Mohammed is in 67th place of male compound names with a frequency of 2.4 per 1,000 births and in 77th place of simple name with 2.1 per 1,000.
If the tables are analyzed by nationality, 41.9% of Bangladeshi parents residing in Spain have called their children Mohammed, making it the most common baby name among this group. The third place is occupied by 18.7%, the Mohammad variant and fourth, with 14%, Mohamed.
Among Algerians, Mohamed occupies first place with a high 69.4% of births and fourth, the Mohammed version with 23.3%.
It should be clarified that the data correspond to the year 2005, the last one officially analyzed. But I play to ensure that in 2006 the number of babies called Mohammed, in all its variants, born in Spain will have increased.
Obviously, the data has an interesting read. That the name of the Prophet Muhammad, is among the most placed in Western countries is certainly curious. We can already see how the trend is going and educate our children accordingly, in tolerance and respect between cultures.
