Mohammad
A masculine name of Arabic origin meaning "praiseworthy" or "praised".
Name Census estimates that about 16,362 living Americans carry the first name Mohammad. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Mohammad today is around 21 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mohammad births was 2022 (537 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mohammad. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Mohammad with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
16K
~ 1 in 20,948 Americans
Peak year
2022
537 babies that year
Average age
21
years old
2024 SSA rank
#599
Tracked since 1964
Census
Mohammad in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 51,752 people with the first name Mohammad, which placed it at #873 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#873
National first-name rank
People counted
52K
51,752 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
17.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Asian and Pacific Islander
56.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mohammad
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mohammad is Asian/Pacific Islander at 56.9%. The next largest groups are White (34.3%) and Two or More Races (6.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Mohammad described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Mohammad at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Asian and Pacific Islander56.9% · 29,461
- White34.3% · 17,735
- Two or more races6.5% · 3,373
- Black or African American1.5% · 793
- Hispanic or Latino0.7% · 348
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 42
Gender
Gender distribution for Mohammad
Out of the 16,658 babies given the name Mohammad since 1880, 99.9% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Mohammad as a male name
- Ranked #599 in 2024
- 475 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2022 (537 births)
Mohammad as a female name
- Ranked #13,788 in 1989
- 5 female births in 1989
- Peak: 1980 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mohammad appears almost entirely male. Of the 51,757 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Mohammad: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mohammad from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 4,494 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Mohammad remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Mohammad by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Mohammad during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Mohammads live
The SSA's state-level files cover 31 states and territories. New York, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Mohammad, while Nebraska, Arkansas, Utah recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 474 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mohammad
The name Mohammad is of Arabic origin, derived from the root word "hamd" which means "praise" or "to praise." It is one of the most popular and revered names in the Islamic world, closely associated with the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam.
The name first appeared in the 7th century CE when the Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca, Arabia, in the year 570 CE. Muhammad is considered the last prophet in the Islamic faith, and his teachings are recorded in the Quran, the holy book of Islam.
The earliest recorded use of the name Mohammad is found in the Quran itself, where the Prophet Muhammad is referred to numerous times. Additionally, the name appears in various historical records and accounts of the Prophet's life, such as the Hadith (sayings and traditions of the Prophet) and the Sira (biographies of the Prophet).
Throughout history, there have been many notable figures who bore the name Mohammad, including:
1. Mohammad bin Qasim (695-715 CE), a renowned Arab general who conquered the Sindh region of present-day Pakistan.
2. Mohammad Al-Idrisi (1099-1166 CE), a Moroccan scholar and cartographer known for his influential work, the Nuzhat al-Mushtaq.
3. Mohammad Ghori (1149-1206 CE), a Sultan of the Ghurid dynasty who played a crucial role in the spread of Islam in the Indian subcontinent.
4. Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938 CE), a philosopher, poet, and politician who is widely regarded as the spiritual father of Pakistan.
5. Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948 CE), the founder and first Governor-General of Pakistan, known as the "Father of the Nation."
The name Mohammad has been widely used across the Islamic world and has remained popular throughout the centuries, with various spellings and variations such as Muhammad, Mohamad, and Mohammed.
People
Mohammad + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mohammad as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Mohammad: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mohammad?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 16,362 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mohammad going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 20,948 US residents.
Is Mohammad a common name?
We classify Mohammad as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 16,658 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mohammad most popular?
The single biggest year for Mohammad was 2022, when 537 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mohammad is about 21 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mohammad in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 51,752 people with the name Mohammad, or 17.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #873 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Mohammad in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Mohammad?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Mohammad appears almost entirely male. Of the 51,757 people counted with this name, 99.8% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Mohammad?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mohammad is Asian/Pacific Islander at 56.9%. The next largest groups are White (34.3%) and Two or More Races (6.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Mohammad most often in the Census?
Asian/Pacific Islander is the largest reported group for people named Mohammad in the 2020 Census, accounting for 56.9% (29,461 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Mohammad in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mohammad a male name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Mohammad in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Mohammad still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mohammad in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Mohammad can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people share the name Mohammad?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.