"Marvellous Malia" and "Sweet Sasha", the two plush dolls that did not put a smile on US first lady Michelle Obama's face, have had name changes, the dolls' maker Ty Inc said in a statement. "In deference to the wishes of the first family, Ty Inc has officially retired the Ty Girlz named 'Marvellous Malia' and 'Sweet Sasha'. We have renamed the dolls 'Marvellous Mariah' and 'Sweet Sydney'," Ty Warner, founder and owner of Ty Inc, said Tuesday.
The dolls, which hit stores across the United States in January, before Malia and Sasha Obama's dad was sworn in as president, were the first African-American dolls in the Ty Girlz collection, joining the likes of Bubbly Britney (Spears), Lucky Lindsay (Lohan) and Precious Paris (Hilton).
When Marvellous Malia and Sweet Sasha first came to market, Ty Inc insisted that their names had been chosen because they were "beautiful names... that worked very well with the dolls we were making." But in a statement posted Tuesday on Ty Inc's website, Warner admitted that the historic election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States had inspired the choice of names, while standing firm on his insistence that the dolls were not meant to resemble the Obama girls.
"While the names Marvellous Malia and Sweet Sasha were inspired by this historic time in our nation's history, the dolls were not intended to bear the likeness of the First Daughters," Warner said. "Marvellous Malia and Sweet Sasha were based on the same design we have used for all 29 of the dolls in our popular Ty Girlz collection - which are all intended to look like no one in particular and everyone in general," he said.
All profits from the sales of Marvellous Malia and Sweet Sasha will be given to an educational charity for underserved youth, the statement said. Michelle Obama said the dolls with her daughters' names were inappropriate.