@expergetech@labyrinth.zone @chjara@akko.wtf @lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me @erincandescent@erincandescent.net @alina@girldick.gay We have only one way to write it in Arabic really, letter-wise: محمد. The problem in transliteration comes from Arabic's diacritics (Harakat) system, those are optional short vowels that you may write for clarity, but you don't have to, because fluent Arab people just "know" by intuition / osmosis / grammar rules and roots of words, but novice Arab learners or foreigners would barely register the difference in the sounds sometimes, let alone be able to guess the right diacritics.

There's only one set of correct Harakat for the name: مُحَمَّد. But, if you drop some of those vowels, because they are optional, a novice Arabic learner would likely be confused. So, that's how you get all that variety of names, depending on what's dropped and not guessed correctly. For example, double 'mm' vs single 'm', they missed Al-Shad'dah[1], which roughly doubles the sounds of the consonant under it. Ending with 'ed' instead of 'ad', they mistook the Al-Fat'hah[2] (angled dash on top of the letter), with Al-Kasrah[3] (angled dash under the letter).

Now, imagine this happening for each possible combination of the five diacritics, while being interpreted by many different chains of dozens and dozens of other languages; Turkish, Farsi, various European languages, Chinese, and all other countries where Muslims have been, and it would be surprising why there isn't even more ways to write that name (there are :D).

The closest way to sound it right, in English, in my opinion, is Muhammad. Note also that there are /different names/ that sound close, like Mahmoud and Hamad, and that probably adds to the confusion of non-fluent speakers (think Jane, Janet, etc.).

Fun fact, Muhammad is apparently the most popular boy name on the planet o.o

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaddah
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics#Fat%E1%B8%A5ah
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics#Kasrah