Saudis Tell Dad He Can't Call Daughter 'Ivanka'

"Ivanka" is not an acceptable baby name in Saudi Arabia, a father was told after trying to give his newborn daughter the same name as President Trump's first daughter. "The civil status department informed me that the name could not be approved because it was foreign," father Salem al-Anzi says, per Gulf News. "I pleaded with them to accept the name, but they said that the law did not permit it." He says he chose the name because he liked it, though he told reporters last week that he was naming his daughter after Trump's daughter and he wanted to challenge government regulations forbidding foreign names, the Washington Post reports.

"I admire the leadership of her father," the dad said in a WhatsApp message after the girl was born last week, praising Trump for bombing a Syrian airbase in revenge for "innocent children" and for his decision to visit Saudi Arabia later this month. He says his daughter will still be known as "Ivanka" within the family, though her legal name will now be "Luma," an Arabic name meaning "female with beautiful lips." (Pokemon and unauthorized WiFi use are also frowned upon by Saudi authorities.)