How can Mohammed be the most popular name for baby boys in a Jewish majority state?

Each year, right before Rosh Hashanah, Israel takes stock of its demographic situation, releasing population statistics and other data, including popular baby names. How is it that Mohammed can top the list since Muslims make up only 18% of the population?

Over the last Hebrew year of 5786, Israel’s favorite baby names were Mohammed, Ariel, and Avigail, according to Population and Immigration Authority data released on Sunday.

As of Sunday, 179,398 babies were registered in Israel, with Mohammed being the most common name among the boys. After Mohammed came Ariel, Yosef, Adam, David, Omer, Rafael, Lavi, Michael, and Eitan but Mohammed seems to have taken the top spot for a reason.

While Jewish Israelis choose a wide variety of names for their children, it is extremely common for Muslim families to call their sons Mohammed. This results in a great multitude of Mohammeds, even though the majority of boys were born in Jewish families. 

Ariel and David have also proved popular in recent years, with Ariel meaning “lion of God” and David meaning “beloved.”

This year Avigail (my father’s joy) was the most popular girls' name, followed by Miriam, Lia, Libi, Tamar, Yael, Ayala, Sarah, Ella and Naya.

Not all of Israel’s most popular names come from the Bible but many do. Ariel is described as a leader and man of learning or insight by Ezra:

“Then I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, leading men, and for Joiarib and Elnathan, who were men of insight” (Ezra 8:16).

Ariel is also another name for Jerusalem, found in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 29:1-7), and the motif of lions has featured heavily during Israel’s seven-front war over the last few years. 

King David obviously remains a key biblical figure in Jewish culture, along with his wife Abigail (pronounced Avigail in Hebrew). Miriam, the sister of Moses, is the Hebrew name translated as Mary in English, and Sarah, Tamar and Yael are also important biblical characters; Sarah, wife of Abraham, being the ultimate matriarch, Tamar being “more righteous” than Jacob’s fourth son Judah by his own admission, and Yael being the heroine who took the King of Sisera out with a tent peg in Judges 4.

Both Jewish and Arab religious families typically have more children than their secular counterparts, which helps explain why, of all Israeli cities, Jerusalem had the highest number of new babies during the outgoing Jewish year of 5786, with 23,336 births registered in Israel’s capital.

Bnei Brak, an Orthodox enclave near Tel Aviv, came second with 8,225 births, while Tel Aviv-Jaffa was third with 7,405, according to the new figures from the Population and Immigration Authority.

Even though more than half of Israelis are secular, the Jewish state still has the highest birth rate in the developed world, according to the Taub Center.

The total fertility rate (TFR) reported by most Western nations is between 1.2 and 1.8 children per woman, whereas Israel averages about 2.87 to 2.9, well above the 2.1 rate needed for a population to replace itself and roughly double that of most European countries.