Cultural takeover By Diana West

As Prime Minister Tony Blair prepares to leave 10 Downing Street, "Mohammad" is the second most popular name in Britain.

As President Bush is finally deserted by his long-suffering conservative base, "Jose" is not the second-most popular name in the United States. But Spanish, as yet unofficially, is America's second language.

Such developments represent two obviously different phenomena — the impact of Muslims and Hispanics on societies once aptly summed up as English-speaking peoples. What is similar is the phenomena's transformative effect: Britain is increasingly defined by its accommodation of a tiny (3 percent) Islamic minority; the United States is increasingly defined by its accommodation of a large Hispanic minority (14.8 percent), some considerable number of whom are here illegally.

Is this a shocking turn of events? You bet. Of course, to anyone who remembers the "Behead Those Who Insult Islam" posters displayed in London last year, the Islamization of Britain may seem long obvious. But that doesn't mean it isn't startling to see, quantified, in a government tally of baby names, a reliable indicator of the increasingly Muslim future of Britain.

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