'Conspiracy' against Muhammad

Ruth Gledhill's blog
January 4th, 2008

The Times reported in 2007 that Muhammad was the second most popular name for new-born boys in Britain, beaten only by Jack. We prophesied that Muhammad in all its various spelling incarnations would soon hit the top spot. Just a year or so later, and as The Times now reports, Jack is still the most popular name, but Muhammad has dropped off the list completely. Archbishop Cranmer, to whom I offer thanks for this illustration and most of the comments below, suspects a conspiracy,

Cranmer writes that all the ad-hoc lists compiled by private companies also appear to have eradicated all mention of Mohammed, whether spelt with a ‘u’, or an ‘o’, two ‘m’s or one. The website ‘Innocent English’ has also cleansed its lists the Prophet, reports Cranmer, who comments:

'Even when one takes into account that there are at least 14 different spellings of the name – all pronounced the same – it is utterly baffling that the name now appears nowhere. The main two, Mohammed and Muhammad (a non-Arab Muslim would adopt the name ending in -ed while an Arab Muslim would adopt the -ad ending) are complemented by Mohammad, Muhammed, Mohamed, Mohamad, Mahammed, Mohammod, Mahamed, Muhammod, Muhamad, Mohmmed, Mohamud and Mohammud. And these are augmented still by the much less-common Mehmet or Mohemet. the rest