TEL AVIV – Mohammad was ranked the most popular name for boys in Israel for yet another year, according to numbers published Monday by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
Last year, 2,730 Muslim boys in Israel were named after the Islamic prophet. The second most common name was Yosef with 1,880 boys named after the biblical interpreter of dreams, of which 637 were Muslim.
Ariel came in at third place, with 1,792 children being given the unisex name.
Among Jewish girls, the most common name was Noa, with 1,445 girls being given the name, making it the most popular name for Jewish girls for 16 consecutive years.
According to the CBS, more than 40,000 girls born in Israel since the state was founded in 1948 were named Noa, trailing behind the biblical names Rachel, Esther, Michal and Sara.
Tamar was the second most popular name for girls in 2015 (1,323), followed by Maya (1,144), Abigail (1,141), Talia (1,081), Adele (1,074), Shira (1,058), Ayela (1,038), Yael (1,022) and Sara (972).
In 2015, Noam was the most common Jewish name with 1,414 boys, followed by David, Ori, Ariel, Eitan, Yosef, Itay, Yonatan, Daniel and Moshe.
The statistics also categorized the most popular names according to city: Jerusalem and Bnei Brak – an ultra-Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv – shared the most common girl’s name, Sara. Haifa, Tel Aviv and other cities in the central region shared Maya.
One in five Muslims are named Mohammad or its derivative, Ahmed (15% and 4.6% respectively).
The other most common names among Muslim babies are Yusuf (3.5%), Omer (3.1%), Adam (3%), Jod (2.7%), Abed (2.6%), Ali (2.3%), Amir (1.9%), Ibrahim (1.9%), Mahmoud (1.8%), Khaled (1.3%).
Among Muslim girls, the most common names are Maryam (2.7%), Sha’im (2.3%), Janah (2.1%), Lian (2%), Layan (1.8%), Alin (1.5%) and Sa’ara (1.4%).
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