Revealed: The most popular baby names in YOUR area - as figures suggest up to 9% of boys now get called Muhammad in parts of country
Simply type in your postcode below to find out.
Our tool – built with Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures released last month – also lists the ten most common names across your wider region.
For example, Alexander topped the tables for boys born in Kensington and Chelsea. Across London as a whole, however, Muhammad was by far the most popular, with 1,044 boys given that name. Noah (595) ranked second.
Daily Mail analysis suggests nearly 9 per cent of boys born in parts of England and Wales last year were named Muhammad.
Muhammad, or the slightly different spelling of Mohammed, was the most common name in 33 of 318 authorities.
It was trumped only by Oliver, which was crowned the most popular in 109 areas.
This is despite Muhammad being the most popular name nationwide.
The same ONS data, spanning England and Wales, revealed 5,721 boys were given the specific spelling of Muhammad in 2024. That marked an increase of 23 per cent in a year.
Noah came in second, with Oliver in third, just as they did in 2023.
In Pendle, just outside Bradford, the same statistics suggested 8.9 per cent of boys born in 2024 were named Muhammad – the highest rate in England and Wales.
Blackburn with Darwen (8.6 per cent) and Bradford (7.4 per cent) followed in second and third spot.
The figures were calculated using separate birth statistics published by the ONS.
The ONS only shared the most popular name for each authority, meaning the exact number of boys born called Muhammad is unknown in the majority of areas.
Moshe, a Hebrew name referring to the biblical figure of Moses, proved the most popular boys' name in the London borough of Hackney.
Nineteen boys were given this name – or a one per cent share of the 1,865 live male births recorded there in 2024.
Mohammed, a different spelling to the one crowned most popular in 2024, entered the top 100 boys' names for England and Wales 100 years ago, debuting at 91st in 1924.
Its prevalence dropped considerably in the lead up to and during WW2 but began to rise in the 1960s.
That particular iteration of the name was the only one to appear in the ONS' top 100 data from 1924 until Mohammad joined in the early 1980s.
Muhammad, now the most popular of the trio, first broke into the top 100 in the mid-1980s and has seen the fastest growth of all three iterations since.
The name means praiseworthy' or 'commendable' and stems from the Arabic word 'hamad', meaning 'to praise'.
The spelling is shared with the founder of Islam – the prophet Muhammad.
Other spellings listed in the ONS report include: Mohamad, Muhamad, Muhamed, Mohammod. Hyphenated variations include Muhammad-Ibrahim and Muhammad-Adam.
Increasing sizes of Muslim communities across the UK fuelled by immigration, as well as the popularity of sporting figures such as Mo Farah and Mohamed Salah are likely to have sparked the increase.
The ONS only provides figures based on the exact spelling and do not group names, as some groupings are subjective and not straightforward.
For example, if multiple spelling were grouped under one umbrella name, Theodore (8th in 2024, 2,761 and Theo (12th in 2024, 2,387) would be far above Noah.
2023 marked the second time just one spelling of the Muhammad topped the charts on its own.
For girls, Olivia took the top spot again, with 2,761 namings making it the undisputed queen of girls names for nine years running.
Amelia came in at number two for the second year in a row, with 2,448 namings and Lily, which sat in fourth spot last year, ranked third (2,185).
Royal names have continued to fall in popularity on the whole.
George ranked sixth with 3,257 babies being given the name and William came in 27th.
Louis came in 47th for boys and Charlotte ranked 23rd for girls.
Names given to baby boys less than five times in 2024 include Yanky, Teddy-Bear, Awesome and Beckham.
Names given to baby girls less than five times include Orchid, Poem, Sicily and Everest.
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