Naming baby Trump stirs trouble

When Asadullah Poya’s wife gave birth to their third child in a tiny village in rural Afghanistan, he thought of Donald Trump.

Not Donald Trump the upstart politician, who at that time was in the thick of the 2016 presidential campaign, but Donald Trump the celebrity businessman. He had just recently read a Dari translation of what appears to be “Trump: How to Get Rich,” published in 2004 by the then- star of “The Apprentice,” and was transfixed.

“I loved his personality. I thought he is the best at eco- nomics and he is great at politics,” Poya said. “I thought ‘This is a great man.’ I liked the way he decides he wants something and then he goes and gets it.”

When his baby came into the world in August 2016, and he saw that the boy had an unusual shock of blond hair, he named him Donald Trump, hoping it would bring him good fortune. It hasn’t. Poya’s own parents were furious that he had given their grandchild a non-Muslim name. The imam of the village mosque devoted an entire sermon to thematter, calling the name an insult. The opposition doesn’t have much to do with President Trump’s politics, but with the decision to break with tradition and name the boy for a non-Muslim.

Poya packed up his family, left his teaching job and the family farm and moved to Kabul. Poya and his children Donald Trump, his older sister Fatima and brother Karim now live in a one-story house that they share with their landlord.

But Donald Trump isn’t liked in the capital either.

On Thursday, five neighbors demanded that Poya be thrown out, calling him an “infidel” for not giving his son a Muslim name.

Poya says he does not want to leave the country, and that he never intended his son’s name to be in the news.