A couple in Armenia named their newborn baby on Wednesday after French President Nicolas Sarkozy in appreciation of his role in the passage of the French law criminalizing the public denial of the genocide of Armenians during World War I.

The Avetisyans, a family in Gyumri, said they had originally planned to name their firstborn Gevorg, in honor of the child’s grandfather, but after the Monday passage of the bill in Paris decided to name the expected baby after the French leader, whose party initiated the legislation.

“Let our baby, Sarkozy Avetisian, become a man as brave and just as his namesake,” the newborn’s grandmother said.

The baby born in the Gyumri maternity hospital on Wednesday afternoon is said to be a healthy child. The little Sarkozy weighs 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) and is 50 centimeters (19 inches) tall.

In 2001, when France first recognized the Ottoman-era mass killing of Armenians as genocide, another couple in Armenia named their newborn twins “Jacques” and “Chirac” in honor of then-French President Jacques Chirac.