Muhammad
Masculine · Arabic roots · “praised”
Muhammad comes from the Arabic root for praise, and it has been in continuous use since the seventh century — by most counts the most widely given name in human history. In English it lands with a strong middle beat, and it has long shortened to Mo. Among its bearers in the United States are a Nobel peace laureate who built banking for the poor and a heavyweight champion who turned the name into two syllables the whole world could shout.
How old is the name Muhammad?
Muhammad first appears in US birth records in 1929 — 96 years ago. The typical Muhammad is a kid of about 9 — this name's wave is very recent. About 21,500 people named Muhammad are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Muhammad most popular?
Muhammad peaked in 2025, reaching #239 nationally. Today it ranks #239, exactly where it peaked. See the whole 2025 chart.
Muhammad appears on these lists:
- Three-syllable names with room to move
- Eight-letter names with presence
- Names with a double letter
- Names that begin and end with the same letter
- Arabic names in American use
- Sports legend names in the records
- all guides
Works in Arabic families too:
Where it comes from
From Muḥammad (Arabic) to Muhammad
The story of Muhammad
Muhammad is Arabic, and it belongs to the Prophet of Islam, born in Mecca in the sixth century — after him the name spread with Islam across Arabia, North Africa, Anatolia, Persia, South Asia, the Malay world and West Africa. Each language reshaped it in its own script and sound: Mehmet in Turkish, Mohammad in Persian, Mamadou in parts of West Africa, Muhamed in Bosnia. Because Arabic has sounds and vowels English does not, the name reaches the Latin alphabet in a dozen respectable spellings rather than one. In the United States it has been on record since the early twentieth century and has climbed steadily in recent decades, with its deepest roots in New York, California and Texas.
Meaning
praised, praiseworthy
From the Arabic root ḥ-m-d, 'to praise'. The related names Ahmad, Mahmud and Hamid come from the same root.
Cultural footprint
Muhammad (b. 571) — The Prophet of Islam
Muhammad Ali (b. 1942) — "The Greatest" — boxing's most famous champion
Muhammad Yunus (b. 1940) — Nobel Peace laureate who pioneered microloans for the poor
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- MuḥammadArabic
- Muhammad
- Mehmed
- Mehmet
Related forms: محمد (Muḥammad) · Mehmet · Mohammad · Muhamed · Mamadou · Mohamad
Pronouncing Muhammad
moo-HAM-mad
Also widely said moh-HAM-med, depending on family tradition and which spelling is used. In Arabic the middle m is doubled and held, and the first h is made further back in the throat than in English.
Nicknames for Muhammad
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1929
- Most boys named
- 20251,473 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #239reached in 2025
- Change vs 2024
- +1.9%1,473 in 2025, from 1,445
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Muhammad in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- محمد (Muḥammad) in Arabic — same name
- Mehmet in Turkish — related form
- Mohammad in Persian — transliteration
- Muhamed in Bosnian — spelling variant
- Mamadou in French / West African — related form
- Mohamad in Indonesian / Malay — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Texas. International figures from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Statistics Canada. Sources
Muhammads among us
people named Muhammad are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,160 born in 2025 was named Muhammad
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Teddy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Muhammad's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Teddy climbed just as high around 1933, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Teddy's path sketches the road Muhammad is walking now.
Muhammad is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Muhammad is headed
Muhammad looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 15% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Muhammad beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Muhammad in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Recognized on every continent and in dozens of languages, so it travels without explanation.
- Long, unbroken record from the seventh century to the present — it has never had to be revived.
- Charts in England and Wales, Scotland and Canada as well as the United States.
- An established one-syllable short form, Mo, ready-made for playgrounds and workplaces.
- Carries clear meaning parents can state in two words: praised.
- The spelling is the main practical matter: Mohammed, Mohamed, Muhammed and Mohammad are all in wide use, so whichever you choose will sometimes be written another way. Deciding once and writing it consistently on documents saves the most trouble.
- The name is inseparable from Islam and from the Prophet, which is precisely the point for many families and worth thinking through for any family for whom it is not.
- In American classrooms he is unlikely to meet another, even though the name is enormously common worldwide — the totals split across all those spellings.
- In some settings the name draws assumptions before the child speaks. Many families find the short form Mo useful to have available, without giving up the full name.
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What they receive
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Muhammad
Masculine · Arabic roots · #239 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Muhammads are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 21,500 people named Muhammad are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Muhammad in 2025?
- Muhammad ranks #239 among US boy names in 2025, with 1,473 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Muhammad?
- About 1 in every 1,160 US boys born in 2025 was named Muhammad — 1,473 in all.
- Will my child share the name Muhammad with classmates?
- Muhammad will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Muhammad
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Warren#240 · Dallas#238 · Kaiden#237 · Adonis#241 · Brody#236 · Milan#242 · Patrick#235 · Ellis#243
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Muhammad? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Muhammad and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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