Muhammad is the most popular boy’s name in England

The Telegraph has an article with the seemingly innocuous headline “Oliver and Amelia the most popular baby names for the third year running”. Oliver was chosen as a boys name by 6,941 parents.

This is only capable of being the truth because, hidden in the text itself, there is a po-faced admission from the Office of National Statistics: the statistics are “based on the exact spelling of the name given on the birth certificate; grouping names with similar pronunciation would change the rankings”.

Ah, there’s the thing.

If you put together the three variant spellings of Muhammad (Muhammed and Mohammed) then suddenly what is effectively the same name is chosen by 7038 parents.

Why doesn’t the Telegraph lead with that description? I would think it rather more news-worthy.