Muhammad
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Variant Used For Mohammad - Founder Of Islamic Religion. Praiseworthy: Glorified.
- Origin
- Arabic
About the Name Muhammad
Muhammad descends from the Arabic Muḥammad meaning "praiseworthy" or "the one worthy of praise" — from the Arabic root ḥ-m-d (to praise). The name is the personal name of the Prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632 CE), the founder of Islam, and is one of the most-used names in human history. Muhammad has been continuously the most-given name in many Muslim-majority countries for over a millennium.
Notable bearers include American boxer Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., 1942–2016, the iconic American three-time heavyweight champion whose conversion to Islam in 1964 made his adopted name Muhammad one of the most-recognizable American names of the 20th century); Pakistani founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948, the founder of Pakistan); and contemporary German soccer star Mesut Özil.
Muhammad's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 1990 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by Muslim-American naming influence. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the Islamic-religious-historical pedigree of the Prophet, the in-built positive meaning of "praiseworthy," and the strong Muhammad Ali cultural anchor. Three flowing syllables, soft consonants, and tonal warmth distinctive to Arabic naming. Common nicknames Mo, Mohamed, and the rare Hamad each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Mohammad, Mohamed, Mohammed, and Muhammed have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Mohammed (the most-common alternate Western spelling), Mehmed (Turkish), Muhammed (Bosnian), and the original Arabic Muḥammad.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Muhammad
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Muhammad by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 1,473 boys named Muhammad (boy rank #239 that year).
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Muhammad Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Muhammad the strongest states are New York, Maryland, New Jersey.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #69 | 2,520 |
| 2 | Maryland | #147 | 412 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #170 | 531 |
| 4 | Virginia | #173 | 504 |
| 5 | Delaware | #176 | 20 |
| 6 | Illinois | #229 | 552 |
| 7 | Connecticut | #236 | 130 |
| 8 | Pennsylvania | #254 | 478 |
| 9 | Michigan | #324 | 275 |
| 10 | Ohio | #344 | 329 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Muhammad in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahmad | Praiseworthy | Male | Arabic |
| Hamid | The Praised One | Male | Arabic |
| Hammad | Praised | Male | Arabic |
| Mahmoud | Variant Used For Mohammad - Founder Of Islamic Religion. Praiseworthy: Glorified. | Male | Arabic |
| Mahmud | The Praised One | Male | Arabic |
| Mohamad | Variant Used For Mohammad - Founder Of Islamic Religion. Praiseworthy: Glorified. | Male | Arabic |
| Mohamed | Variant Used For Mohammad - Founder Of Islamic Religion. Praiseworthy: Glorified. | Male | Arabic |
| Mohamet | Variant Used For Mohammad - Founder Of Islamic Religion. Praiseworthy: Glorified. | Male | Arabic |
| Mohammad | Praiseworthy: Glorified. Mohammad - Founder Of The Islamic Religion. Many Names And Variants Used For Mohammad. | Male | Arabic |
| Mohammed | Variant Used For Mohammad - Founder Of Islamic Religion. Praiseworthy: Glorified. | Male | Arabic |
| Muhammed | Variant Used For Mohammad - Founder Of Islamic Religion. Praiseworthy: Glorified. | Male | Arabic |
Famous People Named Muhammad
7 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Muhammad.
- Muhammad Ahmad was a Sudanese religious leader, who claimed to be deliverer of evil, the ‘Mahdi’, and led a successful ‘jihad’ movement.
- Muhammad Ali — Boxer (1942)
- Muhammad Ali Bogra was the third Prime Minister of Pakistan and was known for initiating bilateral talks with India on the Kashmir issue.
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah — World Leader (1876)
- Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer.
- Muhammad Iqbal was a philosopher, poet and politician in British India and is regarded as being the inspiration behind the Pakistan movement.
- Muhammad Yunus is the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
Looking for names like Muhammad?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Muhammad to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Muhammad against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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