A rose by any other name...

The BBC report that: 'Oliver and Olivia top names' list', informing us that:

'After Oliver at the top of the list, followed by Jack, the rest of the top 10 in England and Wales were filled by Harry, Alfie, Joshua, Thomas, Charlie, William, James and Daniel.'

However if one visist National Statistics and downloads the Excel spreadsheet of names it is a matter of moments to add together the numbers for the three spellings of MOHAMMED that appear in the top 100. Doing so gives a total of 6,535 enough to make that name third in the total lists. the three spellings in the top 100 are Mohammed in 16th place, Muhammad in 36th place and Mohammad in equal 62nd place. The ONS actually states in its notes that:

'The published ranks have been produced using exact spelling of first names given on the birth certificate. Grouping names with similar pronunciation would change the ranks. However, although some groupings are straightforward, others are more a matter of opinion, and thus raw data are given so users can group if they wish.'

I wished and I did...

Oddly while the BBC have decided that no analysis is necessary, or maybe they don't know how to add three numbers in Excel, The Mail has managed to report this story. In fact they have gone further into the data than I have and have discovered that:

'Mohammed is now the most popular name for baby boys ahead of Jack and Harry
...
The name, when 12 different spellings were included, was given to 7,549 youngsters in 2009, official statistics revealed.

Oliver was the second most popular and it was given to 7,364 boys in England and Wales in 12 months.'

At the very least the fact that Mohammed (in all its forms) is the most popular boys name in England & Wales is interesting; but clearly not to the BBC.


In January 2009 I blogged that:

'I read in The Telegraph today that the Office for National Statistics (OFS) "is not publishing its annual survey of the country's most popular names for babies because of cost-cutting - really, is that so, or is there a more prosaic reason?

Last year I reported that taking into account the various spellings Mohammed was now the second most popular name for a boy in the UK - the various spellings being Muhammad, Mohammad, Muhammed, Mohamed, Mohamad, Muhamed and Mohammod as well as Mohammed.

Could it be that including variants Mohammed was the most popular name given to a baby boy in 2008? '

Well the 2008 figures are on the ONS site as well, I may check later...