Nikki Haley Hits Back at Vivek Ramaswamy for Using Her Indian Name in Attack: He ‘Should Know Better’
by Paul Bois
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley responded to Vivek Ramaswamy using her Indian name in an attack posted on his website.
During the first primary debate last week, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy traded barbs over foreign policy, specifically on the issue of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the U.S. special partnership with Israel. On Monday, Ramaswamy’s campaign website published an attack against Haley by referring to her as “lying Namrata.”
“WRONG. Keep lying, Namrata (sic) Randhawa. The desperation is showing,” the post read before it was updated.
Though Haley is of Indian descent (like Ramaswamy), her legal middle name is Nikki and she adopted her husband’s surname Haley after the two married in 1996. Her full birth name is Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. In 2021, USA Today published a defense of Nikki Haley’s name amid attacks that she somehow “whitewashed” it to get ahead in politics:
Haley’s use of her middle name as a first name predates her political career. Haley has gone by “Nikki” ever since she was born, Haley spokesperson Chaney Denton told USA TODAY.
A 2010 Roll Call article echoed this, noting she was known as Nikki throughout high school even though her yearbook photo listed her full name: “Nimarata Nikki Randhawa.”
While it’s a common nickname for women named “Nichole” in the United States, “Nikki” is also a common Punjabi name, the region in India her parents migrated from.