'He has a deep sense of humanity': Syrian refugee family names newborn son Justin after PM Trudeau

Speaking through a translator from his home in Red Deer, Alta., Ahmed Doso explains that it's an old Arab tradition to name your child after a "person with good character."

And so, the Syrian refugee has decided to call his fifth son the first to be born in Canada "Justin."

"It's true the name Justin is Western and we are Eastern and Arabs but out of my admiration of Trudeau, I had no problem to name my son Justin because I like this person. For me he is wonderful and compassionate, I hope all leaders whether Easterners or Westerners would be like him."

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Justin Doso was born on Nov. 2 nine months after hisfamily landed in Canada.

They fled Syria at the end of 2014 and were living in a Turkish refugee camp for about a year. It was there that Ahmed Doso watched Prime Minister Trudeau on TV greeting some of Canada's first Syrian refugees at the Toronto Pearson Airport.

Trudeau, Wynne greet refugees

9 years ago

Duration 1:07

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne greet Syrian refugees in Toronto

"He has a deep sense of humanity," Doso said.

"He's compassionate, he cares about the Syrian plight and all humanitarian causes he assists the people in need of help from countries that has wars."

PM says gesture is 'certainly touching'

Doso said he left Syria for the sake of his four young boys who were traumatized daily by the sounds of bombs being dropped over Damascus.

The family landed in Red Deer in February of this year and were immediately welcomed into the community.

"They made us feel we are not refugees and didn't make us feel that we are coming to a strange country," he said. "They made us feel that we are in our country."

On Wednesday, Justin Trudeau acknowledge the Doso family's nod of appreciation in an email statement to CBC News.

"The gesture is certainly very touching. We are proud, as a government, of fulfilling our commitment to welcoming over 33,000 Syrian refugees to Canada, and the response from Canadians across the country has been tremendous."

With files from the CBC's Dalia Thamin and the Calgary Eyeopener