While most international coverage of Iran’s new supreme leader focuses on geopolitics and war, a surprising side note has emerged on social media: users with a sense of humour and a pasion for wordplay can’t decide what to call him.

After Mojtaba Khamenei — son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — was officially appointed Iran’s next supreme leader by the Assembly of Experts on March 8, reactions ranged from reverent to downright rude.

Mooshtaba & the jam pun

Across platforms including X – formerly Twitter – people have already begun joking about just how his name sounds. Some Persian‑language posts play with the pronunciation “Mooshtaba,” which can in some ways sound like ‘mouse’ to Persian speakers, or twisting it toward “moosh‑taba”, which English‑speakers can cheekily link to “jam”. Strawberry or blackberry, it is unknown which the SL prefers and requests for confirmation have gone unanswered

Whilst not exactly the same, it’s a bit like calling someone “jammy” in a British tabloid: cute, catchy to some extent, but with a hint of ridicule - especially if you imagine ‘spreading’ the name across headlines and memes as the regime tries to cement its grip in a time of crisis.

From “jam” to “ashitaba”?

Now here’s where it gets even stranger (and funnier for Japanese speakers at least): because Mojtaba’s name ends in ‑taba, Japanese speakers have joked it sounds like “ashitaba”, a hardy green leaf vegetable whose name literally translates as “tomorrow’s leaf” given the vegetable’s ability to sprout fresh shoots every day.

The question being asked then is whether he will indeed be jammy and still around tomorrow, thereby proving himself as perennial as the superfood vegetable ‘ashitaba’, or will he wilt under the heat of war and political turmoil, one day to be spread across Tehran like his father? Either way, the nicknames are here to stay — at least until tomorrow’s headlines sprout something new.