The name comes from the passive participle of the Arabic verb ḥammada (حَمَّدَ), meaning 'to praise', which itself comes from the triconsonantal Semitic root Ḥ-M-D.

[citation needed] According to the sixth edition of The Columbia Encyclopedia (2000), Muhammad is probably the most common given name in the world, including variations.

[11] Similarly, since 2008 it has been the most popular baby boy name in Brussels and Antwerp, Belgium's most Muslim-populated cities.

[12] In May 2006, it was reported that statistics indicate that some 8,928 Danish Muslims carry the name Muhammad and that in 2004 alone, 167 new-born babies were registered.

The list included more than two dozen names and was targeted at the 10 million Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang.

[21] In 2017 legislation made it illegal in China to give children names that the Chinese government deemed to "exaggerate religious fervor”.

[25][26] Al Jazeera reported in 2021 that blasphemy charges had been filed against Ahmadis who wrote "Mohammed" on a wedding invitation in an unspecified amount of instances.