When Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor named their newborn boy ‘Taimur‘, the internet lost it. Many dissed the couple for naming their baby after Emperor Timur Lang, who was the man behind a brutal massacre that killed thousands of Indians in 1399 AD. When asked about this controversy surrounding his little one, the Nawab told Times of India:
My daughter told me, why don’t you say that you have not named him after Timur Lang, say that’s Timur and this is Taimur.
He also said:
Incidentally, Timur Lang’s son was Shah Rukh, who is the guy who supposedly said we should actually plunder India. A lot of fighting was done by his sons, but nobody has a problem with the name Shah Rukh (laughs).
Khan even revealed that he was contemplating on changing his son’s name:
You know, actually – I haven’t told anyone this – I thought for a second about changing his name. For a couple of weeks. And Kareena was a little against it and she said, ‘People respect you for your opinion and you can’t’… So I said, yeah, but it’s not about people. I don’t want him to get unpopular. And I still might, maybe when he’s one or two, I might change his name in a while, it’s still sinking in, what to do. Someone in my PR agreed with me, and we drafted a small letter. And when I read it, it was so pathetic, that I cancelled the idea.
He added:
If I feel that he’s going to get in trouble in school, I might change it still. It’s a bit late now though. Or not. I don’t know. You wouldn’t want him to be known as the boy who was originally called Taimur, would you?
You can read the entire interview here.