What are most common names of welfare recipients in Germany?
(MENAFN) Recent figures from the German federal government reveal that ‘Mohammed’ and ‘Ahmad’ rank among the most frequent names of welfare recipients in the country. ‘Olena’, a Ukrainian form of Helen, is the only female name in the top ten.
Germany’s unemployment rate reached 6.4% in August, with the total number of jobless individuals surpassing 3 million for the first time in ten years. Data from the Federal Employment Agency show that 5.42 million people were receiving welfare benefits at the end of 2024, nearly half of whom were foreigners, compared with 19.6% in 2010.
The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) had requested details on the most common first names among recipients to support its claims regarding integration challenges. In June, the Labor Ministry initially responded that the leading names were ‘Michael’, ‘Andreas’, and ‘Thomas’, followed by ‘Daniel’, ‘Olena’, and ‘Alexander’ — a list that drew media ridicule. The earlier figures did not merge different spellings of names, such as ‘Thomas’ and ‘Tomas’ or ‘Mohammed’ and ‘Mohamed’, listing them separately.
The updated data show ‘Mohammed’, encompassing 19 spellings, in first place with nearly 40,000 entries, followed by ‘Michael’ with about 24,600 and ‘Ahmad’ with over 20,600. ‘Olena’ remained the only female name in the top ten, with roughly 14,200 entries.
Germany remains the EU’s primary destination for migrants and the world’s third-largest refugee-hosting country, according to reports. During the 2015 migrant influx, over a million people arrived from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq under former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-border policies. More recently, the country has provided temporary protection to 1.2 million Ukrainians and received 334,000 asylum applications in 2023, nearly a third of the EU total.
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