A little bit of explanation: <name>abad could be loosely translated as "a place founded by <name>". Abad is a popular suffix which makes place names from people

A little bit of explanation: <name>abad could be loosely translated as "a place founded by <name>". Abad is a popular suffix which makes place names from people's names. Ali, Mohammad, Hasan and Hoseyn are the most popular male first names in Iran. To put it in perspective, out of a population of ~76 million people (so ~38 million men), there are ~2.3 million people named Ali. It is not a new phenomenon, people have been playing it safe with their children's names for centuries. As a result, a lot of founders of towns and villages were named Ali or Mohammad. Having so many Aliabads and Mohammadabads is only a natural result.