Lame headline baiting on CNN

"Mohammed is England's top baby name"

I woke up a bit hungover this morning, so perhaps that's why when I saw that headline on the front page of CNN, my first thought was "this is going to suck".

Right off, I'm a bit taken by the lede, "Hit the road, Jack. Last year's most popular name for baby boys in England has been knocked off -- by Mohammed." Am I being oversensitive in reading this as an allusion to violence? Muslims are taking over England and offing the good (white) Jack?

What really bothers me about the article, though, is that many who read it, especially those who see just the headline, might come away thinking that England is being overrun with Muslims, or even that Muslims are outproducing or more populous than non-muslims.

In itself, analyzing baby names is an interesting way to look at demographic trends, but you've got to be very careful with the data. As CNN points out, Oliver was technically the most popular name in England, and Mohammed only took the spot (offing Oliver) after accounting for variations in spelling.

The fact that a Muslim name is more popular than any non-Muslim names could mean two things, either that Muslim families are having more babies than non-Muslim families, or that Muslim families are less diverse in naming their children than non-Muslim families.

So which is it? As the article mentions, to its credit, less than 5% of England is Muslim. The article also briefly states, five graphs in, "And Muslims have a strong tendency to name their sons Mohammed."

Greene then devotes the rest of the article to talking about the rise of Islam in Europe and growing anti-Muslim sentiment, further evidence that this article is trying to use this baby-naming thing as support for the idea that England is awash in Muslim immigrants.

Indeed, the Muslim population is growing, both in England and Europe, but we know this through census data, not baby-naming data. The fact that Mohammed is now the most popular name in England is certainly interesting, but it's easy to get carried away with this sort of fact, especially in the current global climate of hostility towards Muslims.