According to some accounts, there were 16 people before him called “Muhammad”. (Sira Halabi, v.1, p.78: Halabi narrates an old poem in which it is mentioned that before the noblest human [the Holy Prophet] there were 16 persons called “Muhammad”)
According to some other narrations, there were 3 or 4 people before him who were called “Muhammad” and that was because their father had heard Jewish rabbis and Christian priests that the Last Prophet would rise in this land and his name is “Muhammad” and the reign of his religion would be global. Therefore, when they try to bring children and when it was a son, they called them “Muhammad”. (Uyoon al-Athar, Ibn Sayyed en-Nas, v.1, p39)
The famous Arab scholar Ibn Sa’d (died 845) in his “Book of The Major Classes” reported about the different names of the prophet. He referred to one source which says that the prophet was at first named Qutham at his birth by his grandfather 'Abd al-Muttalib. It was later that his mother, Amina, spoke about a dream with an Angel and the grandfather renamed him Mohammed.
In other sources cited by Ibn Sa’d in his book, up to six other names are mentioned, of which Mohammed was only one. According to him the prophet himself said that he had six names:
Mohammed ( The praised, the plessed one)
Ahmed (The highly praised one)
Hatim (The seal)
Hasir (The awakener [of the dead])
'Aqib (concluder)
Mahi (the redeemer [of sins], the one who awakened to life, the eraser of sins)
Note that all names fit Jesus, and that the name Mohammed appears as an epithet and not as a proper name.
Note also that the names Mohammed/Ahmed were not usual before, and they are derived from Daniel 11:10 (אִישׁ-חֲמֻדוֹת / ish hamidut) that means the “highly esteemed” or “the greatly beloved” and it is illustrating the expectations of the becoming of Elijah the prophet at that time after the death of the Messiah of Joseph, Nehemiah Ben Hushiel (brother of Shallum, known as Salman Al-Farsi). Most propable he took his name from Daniel 11:10 after he initiated his ministry, although other much less propable history says that his jewish mother gave this name at birth.
In the inscriptions in the Dome of The Rock in Jerusalem (oldest avaliable) we see “Mohammed abdu 'llah wa Rassuluh” (praised to be the servant of God and his apostle) as an epithet of Jesus. It was an anti-trintarian title of Jesus.
In the bigenning of Abbasid era these names were detached from their original subject Jesus.
The epithet “Mohammed abd 'llah” which once belonged to Jesus became the new name of the prophet in the Abbasid era.
Source:
quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-name-Muhammad-did-not-exist-as-a-name-before-Prophet-Muhammad
