Fact Check: Is Muhammad the top boy’s name in most European countries?

Elon Musk has been widely scrutinized for engaging with controversial commentators and sharing misleading claims on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, since he bought it.

Some companies have pulled their marketing from X after Musk promoted a post that accused Jewish people of pushing hatred before taking aim at antisemitism watchdog the Anti-Defamation League.

This week he promoted a dubious claim of his own, commenting on a post by Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, saying the name Muhammad was the most popular name in most European countries.

The Claim

A post by Jack Posobiec on X, posted on November 22, 2023, viewed 1.6 million times, suggested that the most popular name in Galway, Ireland, was “Muhammad.”

Elon Musk’s response on November 24, which was viewed 163,000 times, stated “True in most countries in Europe.”

The Facts

While Musk’s claim was presented without evidence, substantive and immediately available data contradicts what he said.

Research published earlier this year by Euronews listed the most popular names of boys names in the 27 EU states. The list was standardized to only include data from 2021, based on figures from national statistic offices that provide lists of first names registered in civil registers each year.

Euronews contacted each statistical institute to find out the most popular names, Newsweek was able to independently verify the authenticity of this list, based on the data that was immediately available online.

Noah was the most popular name in the largest number of countries: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and England and Wales. A close variant, Muhammed, was found to be the seventh most popular name in the U.K.

Newsweek also independently assessed 23 of the 44 European countries, including non-EU states, based on figures from official statistical sources, the majority of which were also recorded in either 2021 or 2022.

None of these searches showed that Muhammad was the most popular name for any of these countries either.

Euronews also said it had compiled the variants of Muhammad across all 27 EU states. It still had fewer variants than Lucas, Alexander, and Oliver, in that order. Newsweek was not able to independently verify this data.

In theory, combining a list of names together and reassessing their popularity under one common label could push Muhammad, or a derivation, up the charts.

However, creating a workable list is difficult if not impossible. While some names may appear to derive from a common label, judging whether two names should be paired together is likely to rely on subjective decision-making and other factors such as cultural context.

How far this might affect the popularity of Muhammad is difficult to judge. As the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) states, combining all names with a similar spelling would require “subjective decision-making about whether certain names are distinctive or not.”

Although two names may look similar, such as Sarah and Sara, their pronunciation may differ, puzzling the question of whether they share a common label.

Moreover, compiling names together in one data set, the ONS stated, would be immensely complex, requiring statisticians to analyze and combine the tens of thousands of names given to children across Europe.

Musk’s post also refers to a tweet that specifically quotes the name “Muhammad” and not any variations thereof. Based on the evidence, including Newsweek analysis, Musk’s claim is therefore inaccurate.

Newsweek has contacted X via email for comment.

The Ruling

False.

Muhammad is not the most popular name in most European countries. Recent research based on official statistics shows that the name Noah was ranked the most popular among the largest number of conversations. The name “Muhammad” was not.

While compiling similar variants of Muhammad together could push it up the list, this would also require compiling variants of all other names under common labels, a task that would be tremendously difficult and subjective.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team