ABHA, 23 January 2008 — Saddam Hussein said he faced quite a bit of teasing at checkpoints. He said he would drive up to the guards, show his ID and they would smile and poke light-hearted fun at him.
But instead of having the guards arrested and chained to a wall in some unnamed Iraqi prison, Saddam takes this joking in stride. Why? Because this is a 23-year-old Saudi named Saddam Hussein, not the late dictator of Iraq.
Saddam, whose full name is Saddam Hussein Al-Qahtani, a resident of this southeastern Saudi city, said he’s one of a number of Arab men who were given the name Saddam Hussein when the leader was viewed by the Arab world (not to mention the United States) as a strong neighbor and ally.
According to a report in yesterday’s Al-Watan, since the downfall of the strongman of Iraq, many Saddam Husseins in Saudi Arabia have chosen to have their names legally changed. Al-Qahtani says that he suspects some people have not hired him because of his name.
He says that he faces a lot of humorous incidents at checkpoints with police asking how he got his name. Some relatives say he should legally change his name.
Friends have started embellishing his name by calling him “Saddam the Deposed” and “Saddam the Executed.”
A source in Asir’s civil status department told the paper that after real Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, many Saudi parents decided to change the names of children they had originally named after Iraq’s late strongman.
