Amidst serious concerns over Donald Trump's presidency, some people couldn't help but see his triumph as a bit inspiring. If Trump can beat the odds and reign over the United States, everything is possible.
Kurdish Hassan Jamil was inspired, to say the least. Hoping for a victorious future for his newborn, Jamil named him 'Trump', Trump Hassan Jamil.
"He (Donald Trump) is a confident man and a successful businessman. He became a leader because he has self-confidence," the >Washington Post reports Jamil saying. "When a person has that much self-confidence, that person can win."
Trump Jamil has thus become the first Middle Eastern infant to be named after the US president. His father said Baby Trump already shares the "reddish-orange" skin-tone with his presidential namesake... but he'll grow out of it, right?
Living in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, Hassan Jamil is a 25-year-old father of three serving with the Peshmerga fighters, the military forces in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
When Donald Trump clinched the presidential win last November, Jamil pledged to call his baby 'Trump' if his pregnant wife gives birth to a boy. She did, so Baby Trump came to be.
Here's the catch: Jamil doesn't speak English. He could not understand Trump's speeches, but he said the Republican's "charisma" and "clear policies" sealed the deal.
Responding to Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric, Jamil said, "Trump himself mentioned that he doesn’t like extremist Muslims, not all Muslims. We Kurds are Muslims, but we fight against ISIS because they are extremists."
Jamil isn't Donald Trump's only Kurdish fan. Trump also has a Kurdish restaurant in Iraq, Trump Fish, named in his honor. "The name Trump is beloved in Kurdistan," the owner of Trump Fish told Reuters.
The US president appealed to the Kurdish community in Iraq after saying, "I’m a big fan of the Kurdish forces" in a >New York Times interview last July.
Kurdish peshmerga fighters hope the new president supports their pursuit towards an independent state, considering their loyalty to the US in the battle against the Islamic State.
Trump's position regarding Kurdish independence remains unclear.
The predominantly Kurdish region of Northern Iraq is officially ruled by the Kurdistan Regional Government. President of the Iraqi-Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani has repeatedly called for an independence referendum for Iraq's Kurds, but the security situation has put such plans on hold.