Saudi Arabia Forbids New Father From Naming Daughter ‘Ivanka’
Image by Getty Images
By Aiden Pink May 8, 2017
A Saudi father will not be able to name his newborn daughter Ivanka after the government told him that he couldn’t use the name, the news website Zawya reported Sunday.
“The civil status department informed me that the name could not be approved because it was foreign,” Salem Al Anzi told the newspaper Okaz. “I pleaded with them to accept the name, but they said that the law did not permit it.”
A 2014 law restricts Saudis from using 51 names, many of them foreign or with religious connotations. “Ivanka” was not on that list, but Al Anzi’s quest to formally name his newborn after America’s First Daughter was nonetheless denied.
“Even though my daughter will not be formally named Ivanka, I will continue to call her Ivanka within the family because I do not see any problem with the name,” Al Anzi said.
He told The Washington Post that he picked the name because he admired the leadership skills of Ivanka’s father Donald, who will be visiting Saudi Arabia later this month.
But a friend of Al Anzi told the website Arab News that Al Anzi’s friends had challenged him to name his daughter Ivanka, “and in our culture, we don’t step back from a challenge.”
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter at @aidenpink.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
