The labor ministry has updated its list, now showing Mohammed as the most frequent name, taking over from Michael at the top.
Updated figures from the German federal government indicate that Mohammed and Ahmad are prominent names among those receiving welfare benefits. Olena, a Ukrainian variant of Helen, is the only female name featured in the top ten.
Germany’s unemployment rate reached 6.4% in August, with the number of jobless individuals exceeding three million, a first in a decade. Federal Employment Agency data indicates that 5.42 million people received welfare benefits by the end of 2024; notably, 48% of these were foreigners, up from 19.6% in 2010.
The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party had sought this information on the most common first names of recipients to bolster its arguments concerning the perceived failures of integration.
The labor ministry’s June response initially identified Michael, Andreas, and Thomas as the most common names, followed by Daniel, Olena, and Alexander, which drew media attention to the AfD’s position. However, this first compilation did not group different spellings of names, such as Thomas and Tomas or Mohammed and Mohamed, listing them individually.
The revised data subsequently showed Mohammed, encompassing 19 different spellings, in the leading position with nearly 40,000 entries. Michael followed with approximately 24,600, and Ahmad with over 20,600. Olena remained the only female name within the top ten, with around 14,200 entries.
According to UN data, Germany is the European Union’s leading destination for migrants and the world’s third-largest host country for refugees. Over a million people from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq arrived during the 2015 migrant influx under former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-border policies. In recent years, Germany has also granted temporary protection to 1.2 million Ukrainians and received 334,000 asylum applications in 2023, constituting nearly a third of the EU’s total.
The migrant crisis has reportedly strained housing, public services, and national finances, a situation that has contributed to the ascent of the AfD, which has recently emerged as Germany’s most popular political party in national polls.
In February’s federal election, the AfD secured second place with 152 seats in the 630-seat Bundestag but was excluded from coalition discussions. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) had designated the AfD a “.” While that classification saw temporary suspension, senior officials have continued to investigate legal justifications for pursuing a formal ban on the party.