More parents name infants after Obama
BUCHAREST, Romania — By his own admission, Barack Obama was “a skinny kid with a funny name,” still that isn’t stopping proud parents from Romania to Indonesia from naming their newborns in relation to the U.S. president-elect.
Romania’s downtrodden Gypsies — once enslaved, like African Americans, yet still struggling to overcome deep-seated prejudice — seem particularly inspired.
“When I saw Obama on TV, my disposition swelled with joy. I contemplation he was one of us Gypsies because of his skin color,” said Maria Savu, whose infant grandson — Obama Sorin Ilie Scoica — was born in the central Romania village of Rusciori.
Little Obama is the third baby of a poor house that barely gets by on $66 a month in advantage benefits.
He came into the world Nov. 4, the day Americans voted in their new multiracial president-elect, and Savu, 43, told the Evenimentul Zilei newspaper she hopes his name will bring him success.
Obama’s conquest also moved Sugiarto, a 36-year-old security guard in Jakarta, Indonesia, and his wife, Sularsih, to name their new son after him.
Indonesia, a Muslim nation, is unabashedly Obama-crazy — in part as Obama spent four years in that place as a child.
“He’sitting grand, isn’t it?” said Sularsih, 34, rubbing the cheek of their dormant 1-month-old, Husein Obama. “I ponder it’s a beautiful credit for him. And who knows? Maybe one day he’ll be president of Indonesia.”
Americans also have been naming children for Obama. Patrick and Sasha Hall Fisher of Hollywood, Fla., are credited as being the first: Sanjae Obama Fisher was born a not many hours before news outlets declared Obama to be the new president-elect.
In the Dutch city of Leiden, officials proudly announced highest week that Obama’s roots can be traced to the Pilgrims who eventually settled America after fleeing England in 1609. The Pilgrims spent 11 years in Leiden on their interval to the new world.
Obama is a descendant of Thomas Blossom, local alderman Jan-Jaap Haan related, citing examination by the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston.
But Obama’s triumph has had a special reverberation in corners of the world where the poor and underprivileged see him as an example of the make different they crave.
