On August 16, Angela Merkel Muhammed was born in the German city of Münster in a family of refugees from Syria. According to a spokeswoman from a hospital where the baby was born, the family chose the name out of their gratitude to the Germany Chancellor who opened country's borders to asylum seekers in 2015. "Angela is the first name and Merkel is the middle name of the child," the spokeswoman said as she shared the news with local media on August 21.
This girl is not the first baby to bear Merkel's name. Another Syrian migrant family named their child Angela Merkel Al-Hamza born in December 2015 in Duisburg. In February 2015, an asylum-seeker from Ghana also named her baby born in Hanover after the German Chancellor out of gratitude and hope for the chance to have a better life.
Some Syrian parents are naming their children after Russian President Vladimir Putin as a sign of gratitude, Syria's Ambassador to Moscow Riad Haddad said, addressing Russia's upper chamber of parliament, the Federation Council, in Moscow in April 2017.
"Many families have […] named their sons Putin. And it is no secret that the President's own children are learning Russian," said the official.
For example, a young Syrian family in Banyas, near Tartus, has named their newborn son Vladimir Putin Maihub in a sign of gratitude for the support Russia has given their war-torn country. The boy's father, Nurs Maihub, wrapped his son in Russian and Syrian flags, which he said was a symbol of "the government protecting our children." And his mother, Salwa Abbas, said she was "happy about this name even though it is hard for me to pronounce." She added that someday she "will learn to say it right."
Another "Putin" was born to a family of an Egyptian journalist and translator. Mo'men Mokhtar has named his newborn son in honor of the Russian President. "Allah has given me a son — his name is Putin Mokhtar," the journalist wrote on his page alongside a photo of his firstborn child. When asked "Why Putin, rather than Vladimir?" the man replied that there were hundreds of Vladimirs, but only one Putin.
Honoring new American presidents with baby namesakes has long been a tradition. For example, Portuguese professional football player Cristiano Ronaldo received his second given name after then-US president Ronald Reagan, whom his father admired a lot.
The first baby to be named after Barack Obama in the US was Obama Alhaji Kabinech Kabba born in May 2008 to 35-year-old Isha Kallay in Washington DC. "People don't even know my name in my area anymore. People just call me Obama Momma," she said.
The name Barack, which means "blessed one" in Swahili, has gained its popularity when President Obama took office in 2008. There are so many other "baby-Obamas" known to the media: a woman in Phoenix gave her newborn son the name Barack Jeliah; a Chicago mom named her baby girl, who was born during the president-elect's victory speech, Michelle Obama. A woman in Queens, NY, named her baby boy Jordan Barack; while another mom from Atlanta decided to name her baby boy Obama no matter what the election results were going to be.
A woman living close to the president's ancestral home in Kogelo, south-west Kenya, gave birth to her fourth child on the same day as the election and decided to call the baby boy Barack Obama Oduor "to remember that day and to remember the first black African to be a US president."
The Obamas were not the only political family honored with namesakes in 2008. In early October, one Tennessee father secretly named his newborn girl Sarah McCain Palin after the-then Republican ticket for president and vice president to "to get the word out" about the campaign. However, Mark Ciptak from Elizabethton didn't tell his wife before filling out the papers.
In the United States, the name Donald has been losing popularity for decades, but it faced the biggest drop in 2016, and Donald Trump may be the reason why. The name ranked 488 in the Social Security Administration's annual report on popular baby names for boys in 2016, down from 441 in 2015 and 418 in 2014.
However, the name Donald rose in popularity by 8% during the 2016 presidential election in US, according to an analysis of some 115,000 baby names registered on the BabyCenter site. The name Hillary increased 142% in popularity since 2015. Melania is up 36% and the name of Trump's daughter and spokeswoman Ivanka enjoyed a 39% gain in 2016.
Kassem Eid, a Syrian activist who was injured in the chemical weapons attack in Moadamiya, said: "I am going to name my son Donald, if I have one. This man is a hero. He has balls." Mr. Trump even retweeted to his account this story reported by an American media.
Meanwhile, in the UK, many mothers were inspired by The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. More than half of parents have considered calling their child Corbyn after a surge in the Labour leader's popularity, according to a study, conducted by website channelmum.com. The popularity of this name is expected to rise further after Jeremy Corbyn's unexpected success in the general election.
The same survey, which interviewed 1,305 parents across the UK, found that 40% of parents would consider naming their child May and only 4% would go for Theresa. Other political names included Boris (Johnson) and Diane (Abbott), which both came in at 5% each, Donald (Trump) at 6% and Nigel (Farage) at 1%.