The boy's name Mohammed has shot up the popularity charts in a new sign of the deepening influence of Islam on life in Britain.
The official count of the baby's names chosen most often last year shows that two different versions were in the top 50 picked by parents.
Mohammed, the most common variant of the Muslim Prophet's name, was the 22nd most popular name for boys.
And the alternative spelling Muhammad entered the list of the top 50 names for the first time, becoming the 44th in the chart.
The rise of Mohammed as a name is an indicator of growing numbers of Muslims in British society in recent years.
There were 3,732 boys named Mohammed or with one of seven other variants of the name in 2000. Last year there were 4,532, and this year 5,936, a rise of nearly two thirds on the Millennium year.
Numbers have been growing as a result of continued immigration from Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as waves of new arrivals from Islamic countries or countries with high Muslim populations in the Middle East and Africa, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Nigeria.
Recent immigrants have swelled the Muslim population of around 1.6 million counted by the last national census in 2001.
An analysis published by analysts at the Government's Office for National Statistics earlier this year showed that new migrant familes tend to have children a few years after arriving in Britain, after taking time to find work and settle down.
The increasing popularity of the name may also reflect deepening loyalty to their faith among Muslims.
The ONS breakdown of this year's popular names showed yesterday that Muhammed is the fastest climber in the top 50 chart.
Comment:
In Britain the separation of church from state happend a long time ago and since then Secular society has supposedly flourished with only minor traces of religion existing. Democracy and freedom have become the ideas which people now worship and will give thier lives to defend and propagate abroad in foreign colonial adventures.
Even practicing Christians, Jew, Hindus and Sikhs have no problems with living and being part of a secular society which constantly picks on religion and religious figures for ridicule as part of some ritual to prove there Secular credentials. While other faith groups have mostly accepted the right of people to vilify and insult under the guise of freedom of speech, the Muslims have proven and shown ourselves to be the exception to the rule.
Many people living in Britain used to choose names for their newborn after the disciples of Jesus peace be upon him once upon a time. At school many of my English friends were called: Mathew, James, John, Paul, Luke. Nowadays as Britain is becoming increasingly Secular and trying to remove all traces of religion from society following the French model, we find that the names i have mentioned are becoming less common and most babies are being named after pop stars, footballers, actors and even winners of reality tv shows.
But for Muslims, names like Mohammed, Salahuddin, Khalid, Usamah, Musab are increasing in popularity as names which have a cultural conotation from the Indian sub-continent are being abandoned in favour of Islamic heroes past and present.
According to this paper this is a sign of Muslims adherence to Islam which is increasing and for a Secular society quite frightening because we all know that Secularists are scared to debate the existence of a creator which even a 12 year old Muslim can prove to them exists.
But they persist and blindly follow the evolution theory which allows them to make laws from their own minds and live life based on their desires like animals in a jungle consistent with the evolution theory of having evolved from animals in the first place.
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