Mohammed likely to top British boys' name by years end

[url=http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070606062208.yii0bwst&show_article=1]Mohammed will likely become the most popular name for baby boys in Britain by the end of the year, The Times reported on Wednesday, citing government data.

Though official records from the Office for National Statistics list the spelling Mohammed 23rd in its yearly analysis of the top 3,000 names given to children, when all the different spellings of the name are taken into account, it ranks second, only behind Jack, according to The Times.[/url]

Times is changing. I think Jose’ is among the top in the USA now.

Buenas suerte’

Really? They’re still using “Mohammed” and not “Muhammad”? I thought most people had switched over by now.

A little tune for the morning…

youtube.com/watch?v=wwoGtHAG8IQ

Why do Spanish-speaking people sometimes call their children Jesus but English-speaking people don’t?

p.s. Some Arabs have the name Jesus in Arabic - Issa.

Christos is a fairly common Greek name.

“Christ! Get your brother and GET BACK HERE!”
:laughing:

…right over the top of me head it went…

And Chris is a fairly common English name.

Because we use Joshua instead.

Because we use Joshua instead.[/quote]

I didn’t realize they were related.

Now that I look, Wiki says:

Joshua: [quote]The original Hebrew name Yehoshua יהושע often lacks a Hebrew letter Vav (ו) after the Shin (ש), allowing a misreading of the vocalization of the name, as if Yehoshea (יְהוֹשֵׁעַ), and indeed his name was Hoshea before his name change to Yehoshua by recommendation of Moses (Numbers 13:16). Nevertheless, the use of a mater lectionis was an orthographic innovation, and although the use of two Vavs is well attested as יְהוֹשׁוּעַ (for example, Deuteronomy 3:21), traditional orthography tended to avoid the second Vav as too intrusive when spelling Yehoshua. The name Yehoshua` in Hebrew means “salvation” from the Hebrew root ישע, “to save”.[/quote]

[quote=“TainanCowboy”][url=http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070606062208.yii0bwst&show_article=1]Mohammed will likely become the most popular name for baby boys in Britain by the end of the year, The Times reported on Wednesday, citing government data.

Though official records from the Office for National Statistics list the spelling Mohammed 23rd in its yearly analysis of the top 3,000 names given to children, when all the different spellings of the name are taken into account, it ranks second, only behind Jack, according to The Times.[/url]

Times is changing. I think Jose’ is among the top in the USA now.

Buenas suerte’[/quote]

I think that is misleading in a way. It gives the impression that there are more muslims that there actually are in the UK. Mohammed is popular yes. However there are many more varieties of western name that there are of Muslim name. Many more muslims call there sons Mohammed than English people call their sons Jack.

That is an interesting question. Are “Muhammad” and “Mohamed” considered the “same” name? What about (Turkish) “Mehmet”? Or Ahmad /Ahmet, which (loosely speaking) is to Muhammad as Christ is to Jesus?

And on the Christian side, are “John”, “Sean”, “Ivan”, and so on all considered to be the “same” name? How about Yahya (the Arabic equivalent)? Is the Qur’anic character the “same” as the biblical character? (By the way Isa–Arabic for “Jesus”–is a common Muslim name.)

Does the distinctiveness of a name consist in its spelling / character rendition (in which case we should never be allowed to switch between simplified and complified), pronounciation, or reference?