“Mohammed” now the most common name on list of Germany’s unemployment benefits recipients, new data shows

09/01/2025 / By Laura Harris

New federal data, after consolidating 19 spelling variants, shows “Mohammed” is now the most frequent first name among Bürgergeld recipients in Germany, surpassing traditional German names like Michael and Andreas.
The initial report separated name spellings, masking the prevalence of culturally diverse names. After an AfD inquiry, the revised data revealed names like Ahmad and Ali also rank among the top 10.
As of the end of 2024, 5.42 million people received Bürgergeld. While 52 percent were classified as Germans and 48 percent as foreigners, critics say naturalized migrants are counted as Germans, downplaying migration’s impact.
The CDU/CSU is calling for stricter welfare access for migrants, citing high Bürgergeld dependency rates among Syrians (52.8 percent) and Afghans (46.7 percent), with low labor force participation in both groups.
Breaking from party leadership, two SPD district officials proposed replacing social benefits for non-EU migrants with repayable, interest-free loans once employment is secured.

A new set of figures released by the German federal government has reshaped the understanding of who receives the country’s basic welfare support, known as Bürgergeld, by revealing that “Mohammed,” when accounting for all spelling variants, is now the most common first name among recipients.

Based on the initial report, traditional German names like Michael, Andreas, Thomas and Daniel were listed as the most frequent among Bürgergeld recipients. However, when the government separated the names by spelling, it obscured the prevalence of names with multiple common variants.

The updated figures, published after Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker René Springer questioned the methodology behind earlier statistics, show that the name Mohammed, including 19 different spellings such as Mohamed, Muhammad and Mahamadou, ranks first, with 39,280 instances. Michael, which includes spellings like Michel, Mischa and Maik, now ranks second with 24,660 entries. Ahmad (including variants like Achmet and Amed) climbed to third with 20,660, overtaking Andreas (18,420) and Thomas (17,920).

The shift underscores how names with multiple cultural spellings had previously been undercounted.

As a result, several names commonly associated with immigrant communities, especially those of Islamic origin, now feature prominently in the revised list. Mohammed, Ahmad and Ali all appear in the top 10. The federal government emphasized that first names alone do not indicate a person’s nationality or immigration status, but officials acknowledged that they often serve as indicators of cultural background.

Calls for reform grow as millions of migrants rely on Germany’s Bürgergeld welfare

According to Brighteon.AI’s Enoch, Bürgergeld was first introduced in 2023 to replace the Hartz IV system and provide financial support to unemployed individuals or those with insufficient income.

As of the end of 2024, 5.42 million people in Germany were receiving Bürgergeld. Of those, 2.82 million (52 percent) were classified as Germans and 2.6 million (48 percent) as foreigners. However, critics argued that this classification obscures the real impact of migration, since naturalized citizens of migrant origin are counted as “Germans” in official statistics. (Related: Report: Almost half of welfare recipients in Germany are MIGRANTS.)

The opposition CDU/CSU alliance has seized on the new data to call for tighter controls on welfare access for migrants. Deputy parliamentary leader Mathias Middelberg urged job centers to better integrate refugees into the labor market, especially among Afghan and Syrian communities. Government figures show that 52.8 percent of Syrians and 46.7 percent of Afghans in Germany currently receive Bürgergeld. In contrast, fewer than 40 percent in both groups are employed in jobs that pay into the social security system.

“Just 100,000 more people in work instead of relying on the citizen’s allowance could, depending on wage levels, relieve the federal budget in the low single-digit billion range every year,” Middelberg said. “We cannot accept that hundreds of thousands of young asylum seekers here in Germany are unemployed for decades.”

Dissent is also emerging within Germany’s governing Social Democratic Party (SPD). Earlier this month, two SPD district administrators from Thuringia publicly broke with party leadership, calling for non-EU migrants, including asylum seekers and recognized refugees, to receive social benefits only as interest-free loans, repayable after entering the workforce.

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This video is from the Paul Davis UnCancelled channel on Brighteon.com.