Why is Muhammad a common Muslim name, but Jesus not a common Christian name?

It does just seem kind of weird in English, though. Maybe it's just a kind of an inexplicable hangup of anglophone westerners. Just a kind of a custom without a real reason, or something lost to the mists of time, or some confluence of many different reasons. The way we can't explain why it's OK to say "A big, red balloon" but not "A red, big balloon".

That’s not an anglophone thing. The unofficial prohibition on naming your son Jesus can be found in most societies. Spanish-speaking societies are the notable exception.

The comparison to Mohammed is not exact as he is not considered divine, just a prophet, in Islam. John the Baptist is a prophet in Christianity and there is certainly no objection to naming a boy John.

However, it seems possible that Iberian Christians copied the Islamic custom of using Mohammed as a given name by using Jesus.
 
Jesus: Derived from the Late Latin Iesus, which is from the Ecclesiasted Greek Ieous, a name derived from the Hebrew Yeshu'a, a contraction of Yeshoshu'a. The name, an equivalent of Joshua.....

Copied from "A World of Baby Names" by Teresa Norman, who holds the copyright of said book. It also echos three other baby name books I have that go into such detail about origins of a name.

So, every Joshua is the English version of Jesus, I suppose, whether the parents meant to or not.
 
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