Lily & Mohammed the real number ones

[pickler]

The REAL top names are..

1. Mohammed - 7528
2. Oliver - 7364
3. Jack - 7275
4. Harry - 6332
5. Thomas - 5857
6. Alfie - 5565
7. Joshua - 5531
8. Charlie - 5530
9. William - 5255

10. Daniel - 4670 11. James - 4549 12. George - 4383 13. Samuel - 4346 14. Jacob - 3776 15. Ethan - 3729 16. Joseph - 3677 17. Lucas - 3555 18. Jayden - 3515 19. Dylan - 3478 20. Benjamin - 3319 21. Oscar - 3219 22. Finlay - 3189 23. Lewis - 3114 24. Archie - 3085 25. Alexander - 2997

1. LILY 5856
2. OLIVIA 5450
3. ISABELLE 5165
4. RUBY 4695
5. EMILY 4654
6. CHLOE 4507
7. SOPHIE 4496
8. JESSICA 4321
9. GRACE 4214

10. AMELIA 3692 11. EVIE 3416 12. AMY 3106 13. HOLLY 3051 14. LUCY 2921 15. ELLA 2914 16. MIA 2888 17. ISABELLA 2880 18. AVA 2856 19. CHARLOTTE 2778 20. SOPHIA 2603

Was refering to your previous post, not the Mohammed one BTW!

I suppose because parents tend to name babies after people they find remarkable. And for parents who are devout Muslims, Mohammad is a most remarkable person.

Aimee is a a French name and it is not pronounced the same as Amy at all.

It is though. Lots of people who are called Amy spell it Aimee. They don't say bonjour je m'appelle Ammmay.

A huge number of Muslims must be devout.

All the Aimees I know pronounce it Amy. We're not in Fance.

*France

It does seem bizarre. That only includes boys and for one year to have such a large proportion of one name from one not very large proportion of the community. It's obviously not wrong, but there must be some pressure/tradition involved combined with a higher birth rate in that community.

That is selective perception. Like noticing only the red cars after you buy one yourself. There are probably many other Muslim names around you but you don't identify them as such. Or maybe you live near devout Muslims (do you also see many head scarves?)

I know many Muslim families (mine included) and not a single Muhammed.

I think the fact that it is hard to know where to draw the line is why they compile the list in the way that they do, ie each spelling as a seperate name.

For example not everyone might realise that Seán is pronounced the same as Siôn.

I am not trying to annoy you Cote, this is interesting imo, but I think there has to be a bit more to it than selective perception !

In the uk the number one name, the MOST popular name for boys is Mohammed! If you assume (fair assumption?) that none of the White/English/Scottish/WElsh/Irish/italian/polish/greek people in the UK are using the name, then it means that the name Mohammed must be almost manadatory for Muslims! I mean it's more popular than Jack within a much smaller percentage of the population.

I do agree DS, but there are a few obvious ones like Isabel/Isabelle, Charlie/Charley etc.

I'm a teacher in a school with quite a large turkish intake. There are a lot more "Mustafa's' I've taught than Muhammeds. I think the boys names are easier to identify than the girls names, which can be cross cultural. That still doesn't explain the sheer volume of Mohammeds this year though.

DS yes it's still useful to see them listed separately. If they weren't you wouldn't know what the most standard spelling was. I'd like to use the most accepted spelling of any name that had several different spellings.

Maybe the "White/English/Scottish/WElsh/Irish/italian/polish/ greek people in the UK" are just using a wider range of names?

For example, looking back in my family tree it seems as though every second boy was called John. If they weren't called John they were called William. A Thomas was incredibly exotic! There must have been whole streets full of children called John. But we now tend to see a common name as a bad thing and so are less likely to choose the same name as everyone else. Maybe in other cultures it is more coomon to choose poular names, in the same way as it was amongst British people 100 years ago?

Do you list Charlie with Charles?

No. No nicknames and their formal names were combined. Not every Charles is known as Charlie so would be unrealistic to combine them.
Alex, Ben, Sam, Max etc would have been in the top 10 if I'd combined!

Yes DS I think 'our' generation (no idea what age you are, I mean anybody of childbearing age roughly!) is still traumatised from being one of 6 claires in their class. Or Jennies/Suzannes/Karens if you were born in 1970. Insert as applicable ! We're all still recovering from having had two auntie margarets and a mother called barbara and a mil called barbara. (examples here btw, not real names)

I'd like to see a list where all the long and short versions were added together, eg Ben Benjamin, Lily Lilian etc.

Possible solution to these missing Mohammeds :

I worked with a guy called Mohammed middlename surname, who was just called middlename surname on a daily basis. So still officially called mohammed on birth certificate and added to stats.

If this is widespread, would explain why we don't know many boys with the 'most common' name?

Good idea. Get on that?!

Yes I thik they are both reasons for the Mohammeds. I suppose the english/Welsh/Polish/Greek all have Christian heritage, so use christian names (although my DS's name is old testament and is commonly used in the Muslim community).

My DH has his family tree and there are whole families called William. It's something to do with property. As thats not the case any more, people probably just name their kids what they like. ( Blaome the Land Registry!) I suppose if there are s many Mohammeds, they must be known by second names.

Cote...I had assumed so given it was so high, but then my brain engaged and I thought under eight thousand is probably not such a large percentage afterall.

Sorry, I'm not really illiterate- I'm just too lazy to spellcheck before posting!

This was on the main evening news in the States last night (nationwide) and they went with the name Mohammed being most popular instead of Oliver. I suppose they may be making a point but I was quite surprised that NBC Nightly News would even mention a bunch of UK statistics.

NBC is no BBC and that's for sure. I watched a clip of a presenter on NBC Texas ask the question 'will the acceptance of gays be the downfall of america?'. I am NOT kidding. Unbelievable. And he was asking it with a straight face as though it were a reasonable question that merited discussion. I'd say they loved reporting that the number one name in the UK is Mohammed. They probably put a juicy little slant on it too.