The name game

The ONS have published its list of popular names, and so it’s time for that annual ritual of debating whether Mohammed, if you include all eight spellings, is really the most popular name in Britain. It depends; if you include spelling variations in a name, do you also include diminutives, in which case Oliver and Ollie, and Henry and Harry, outnumber all Mo’s. But then diminutives are sort of separate names where variations are not, Isabella, Lisa and Jack all having started as diminutives, now surely names in their own right.

Why on earth does this pedantry pop up? Whether you think Mohammed tops the list says a lot about your view of Muslim immigration, whether it is all part of the natural tapestry of English history (the Huguenots, Mary Seacole, zzzzz) or alternatively the Muslamics are taking over with their ray guns.