For the third year in a row, Muhammad is the most popular name given to baby boys in England and Wales. The name beat out Noah, Leo, Luca, Arthur, Oliver, and George, and the ranking immediately sparked fierce debate about immigration, shifting demographics, and what Britain is becoming.
The figures come from the Office for National Statistics, which tracks birth registrations across England and Wales. In 2025, 5,957 baby boys were registered under the name Muhammad, placing it comfortably ahead of the competition. Noah came in second, followed by Leo, Luca, Arthur, Oliver, George, Oscar, Theodore, and Freddie.
One important detail in how the ONS counts names: spelling variants are recorded separately. Mohammed and Mohammad both appeared in the top 100 as distinct entries. That means the combined total of boys given any version of the name is higher than the headline figure for Muhammad alone.
As originally reported, the ONS released the full boys’ baby-name dataset on July 9th. Muhammad was the most popular boys’ name in four separate English regions. In Wales, however, the name ranked 34th, suggesting the trend is concentrated in specific parts of England rather than spread evenly across both nations.
On the girls’ side, Olivia held the top spot for the tenth consecutive year.
The name ranking didn’t exist in a vacuum. The ONS data also revealed that 40.2% of live births in England and Wales in 2025 involved at least one parent born outside the United Kingdom, up from 39.5% in 2024. Total live births came in at 585,396, down slightly from 594,677 the previous year.
Those numbers gave the baby-name story a much bigger political charge.
Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe, MP for Great Yarmouth, responded on X by connecting the name ranking directly to demographic change. “Muhammad has comfortably topped the list for the most popular boy name for the third year running,” Lowe wrote. “You can call me Islamophobic, I really don’t care.” He continued, “This is awful and demonstrates the rapidly changing demographics of our country. Only Restore Britain will fight this.”
Critics of mass migration have pointed to the annual name rankings as one of the most visible everyday signs of a country being reshaped, a shift they argue many British voters never explicitly endorsed.
Muhammad first claimed the top spot in England and Wales in 2023 and has held it every year since. Whether the name holds the position again in 2026 will likely generate the same level of political heat all over again.