Senegalese man defends naming son after US president

A Senegalese man who named his son after the US president, Barack Hussein Obama, two days before the would US president was elected, has defended his decision.
Young Barack Obama Ndiaye was born to a couple who lived in Hendersonville, Tenn. The father, Amadou Ndiaye, a biomedical engineer, migrated to the United States in 1994. Mr. Ndiaye said that in his home country, when one name someone their son, it is something considered very precious to them.
“Barack is someone I love. And naming my boy after him — I mean, he is always around me,” Mr Ndiaye told Niger1.com He recalled how astounded the nurse who superviced the birth of Barack junior has become when he filled a form she had given him asking him to indicate what he wanted the boy’s name to be. “When the baby came, the nurse came over and handed me all this paperwork and say, ‘’You have to fill this and put the baby’s name in this,” he said. “I just signed the paperwork ‘Barack Obama Ndiaye’ and handed it back to the nurse. And she looked at the paperwork and said, ‘Are you kidding?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not kidding.’ That’s exactly what I said. I said ‘Barack Obama Ndiaye,’ and she just kind of like laughed and just walked away with the paperwork.” “Everywhere he go: ‘Baby Barack, baby Barack Obama, baby Barack Obama,’” Mr. Ndiaye said. “It’s a part of history now. When he grow up and he starts going to school and when they say, ‘O.K., who is the 44th president of the United States?’ he can pick up the book — the history book — and understand why his name is Barack Obama.”