The Name “Mohammed”
By Dr Ghulam M Haniff
St. Cloud, Minnesota
It was bound to happen sooner or later (but not this soon) that “Mohamed” in any variation, one of the top names in the world, would emerge to become a top name in this country as well. This news was carried in an article in the StarTribune, Wednesday, April 10, 2013. It is the largest circulating newspaper in Minnesota, and as well in the surrounding areas.
The paper gave the reason that this was possible due to population diversity. The rank will keep on moving forwards by notches every so often. The story was reported on page one and was headlined “Mohamed Joins Olivia, Mason in the State’s Top 100 Baby Names.” This is an added benefit to the Muslin community for which they should be justly proud.
It is an exciting news for the Muslim collectivity. The small community of Muslims in the country, as well as in Minnesota, seems to be growing in a robust manner given their recent history of immigration.
One reason for the popularity of the name Mohammed is due to the heterogeneity of the American population. Since the end of the Second World War the US demographic structure has become more and more diverse. For the last three or four decades substantial numbers of Muslims have immigrated to the United States.
Muslims had a tough time getting a visa since the Asian Exclusion Act was passed in 1924, and remained so that way until the passage of Kennedy Immigration Bill in 1965. During the many intervening years hardly any Muslim migrated to the US except for relatives of Muslims already living in this country.
Since 1965 more and more Muslims have migrated to this nation bearing the name Mohammed, Mehmet, Muhammad or Mahmid. Since Muslims speak a variety of languages they had to capture the sound in their own language and so the reasons for various spellings.
It is interesting that for the first time, Mohamed has made the list of the state’s most popular baby boys’ name showing up at No. 98 and rising steadily over the years. This data was released by the US. Social Security Administration last year. Out of 100 names Mohamed at the 98 th place was the most popular name for the state of Minnesota.
This is true only for the state of Minnesota where large contingent of Somali people are to be found. Also, this state has a relatively small general population than many others.
Just a few years ago the name Mohamed became the top one in Britain because the Muslims have a larger rate of birth than the local born native population. In a number of other European localities, at the sub-national level, there are more Muslim babies born than the native European ones.
No one had expected that one day the name Mohammed would be a popular one even in the United States of America. From the trend visible it seems that the popularity of that name would continue to gain momentum in the future.
Now that Muslims have spread out to many parts of the world it is quite likely that the name Mohamed be one of the top ones in several other countries. In France, Belgium and Netherlands it is headed upwardly though in many North African countries the name is not particularly popular. Same thing holds true for the Turkish population though they are settled in several countries besides Germany.
The naming of Muslim boys by the popular name is likely to wield considerable bonanza for the Islamic community by the nation they happen to be residing in. It gives a kind of honor to the Muslims and an opportunity to them to compete by making the name an object of attention. Whether Muslims will grab on to that object of attention is very difficult to say at this moment.
Muslims themselves will have to contact the Social Security Administration to see whether this trend has kept up moving or not to make an agenda out of it. No doubt, Muslims will have to take this idea and run with it. Others will not do the work for you.
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