By Khaled Shmitt , IOL Germany Correspondent

BONN, December 30 (IslamOnline) - A German newspaper reported that the name “Muhammad” ranked number one in the list of the most widely used names among male infants in Brussels, Belgium’s capital, during the year 2002.

The newspaper clarified Saturday, December 28 that the statistic which is done by the central body for statistics in Belgium showed that the name of “Muhammad” ranked number one in the list of the most widely used names among male infants in Brussels.

The newspaper assured that all names but two of those stated in the list were Arabic or Islamic. The two western names are “Alexander” and “Tomas”.

According to the list , the most widely spread names was ranked as follows: Muhammad, Alexander, Ayub, Tomas, Belal, and Mahdy.

As for female infants, the most widely spread names were as follow: Laura, Sara, Eman, Rania, Yosra, and Maria.

The statistics said that the reason behind the popularity of Islamic and Arabic names is the large number of foreigners in Brussels. There are more foreigners in Bussels than the total number of foreigners in the rest of Belgium’s cities.

There is a higher birth rate among Muslims than other races and religions in Europe since the Muslim birth ratio is 3:5 in contrast to 1:2 of others.

Muslims prefer to name their infants after the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him), also they believe that the best names are what include the words “Abd” and “Hamd”, such as Abdullah, Abdel Aziz, and Abdel Rahman.

The official statistics show that the Muslim population is 300,000, and most of them are from the Moroccan community which ranked number one in Belgium since their population is estimated to be 140,000.

The Moroccan population in Brussels is estimated to be 75,000, equal to 8% of the capital population, which is estimated to be 2 million.