A couple in Egypt has named its newly born daughter ‘Facebook’ to honour the role the social networking site played in the 18-day protests in the Arab country that resulted in the ouster of lontime President Hosni Mubarak.
Jamal Ibrahim, the 20-something father, gave his daughter the name ‘Facebook’ as he “wanted to express his gratitude about the victories the youth of January 25 have achieved and chose to express it in the form of naming his firstborn girl,” an ABC News report said.
Ibrahim told Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper that his friends and family have expressed their “continuing support for the revolution that started on Facebook.”
According to a translation of the Al-Ahram report provided by website TechCrunch, “A young man in his twenties wanted to express his gratitude about the victories the youth of 25th of January have achieved and chose to express it in the form of naming his firstborn girl ‘Facebook’ Jamal Ibrahim.
“The girl’s family, friends and neighbours in the Ibrahimya region gathered around the new born to express their continuing support for the revolution that started on Facebook. ‘Facebook’ received many gifts from the youth who were overjoyed by her arrival and the new name. A name (Facebook) that shocked the entire world.”
The ABC report said there are five million Facebook users in Egypt with 32,000 Facebook groups and 14,000 pages created in the two weeks after January 25, the day the protests began in Egypt.
Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and You Tube were used extensively by Egyptians during the protests against the 30-year old Mubarak regime.
Google executive Wael Ghonim was among the many Egyptian organizers who used social media to mobilise demonstrators with his ‘We Are Khaled Said’ Facebook page, created last year in the wake of the murder of student activist Khaled Said at the hands of Egyptian police.