Ontario teen Isis King faces bullying, Facebook ban over her name

A high-school student from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., is fed up with harassment she's received about her birth name, which hit a new low when she got barred from using it on Facebook.

Her name is Isis King and she's been taking undeserved flak because of the similarities her first name has to the extremist groupIslamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

King said some people have told her they find her name offensive, that it's horrible or that she shouldn't have it at all.

Some of this has come from people at her high school, but she's also been served with a heavy dose of online abuse.

"They'll call me a terrorist, or a freak, and say I don't belong and stuff like that," King told CBC News in an interview this weekend.

• Women named Isis face backlash over Islamic State acronym

King said her mother named her after the Egyptian goddess.

"I really like it because it's different than everybody else's," she said.

And while King is proud of her name, she's growing tired of the hassles she's been putting up with, which have coincided with the growth of the militant group.

The latest issue came when Facebook forced her to change the name on her account, she says.

"Basically, I was just scrolling through photos and it directed me to this page, where it said my name and told me I have to change it because it was deemed inappropriate and fake," King said.

King said she tried to enter her name as usual, but it wouldnt allow her to do so.

As a result, she had to put a fake namedown in order to be granted access to her account.

"They never sent me a message, they literally made me or I couldn't get back on my account," said King, who had been trying to make contact with Facebook about the issue.

In response to a CBC News inquiry, King is able to use her name once again on Facebook.

The company said it didn't blockaccess to her account.

"Isis did not get banned from Facebook, but because her account was reported to us as 'fake,' we did ask her to verify her ID with us," said Facebook spokeswoman Meg Sinclair. "This is standard procedure for accounts that are reported to us as fake we try to make the process as fast and hassle-free as possible."