“Te Aroha was our way of reflecting on the amount of love this baby’s been shown before she even arrived, and all of the names we were gifted along the way,” said Ardern.

“I thought, how do I reflect the generosity – particularly from all of the iwi who gifted us names – and Te Aroha seemed to me to be a way we could show that love and generosity.”

By choosing a Māori name for their daughter, Ardern and Gayford are making a significant political statement. The Māori are a marginalised group in New Zealand, facing widespread racial discrimination and inequalities in education, employment and income. Teo reo Māori is also a language vulnerable to extinction, according to UNESCO, while Māori names rarely make the top 100 most popular baby names in New Zealand. As a result, it’s a big deal for the country’s most powerful politician to introduce a Māori name into her own family.

However, Ardern’s decision to honour New Zealand’s first people with her choice of baby name isn’t entirely unprecedented. In April, the prime minister made international headlines when she visited Buckingham Palace wearing a kahu huruhuru, a traditional Māori cloak.

Writing for stylist.co.uk at the time, New Zealand journalist Janina Matthewson described the cloak as “a way of demonstrating that Ardern represents a multi-ethnic country, that she is working for all New Zealanders… Seeing our Prime Minister reaffirm the fact that Māori culture is a crucial part of our national identity feels personal.”

The deep political significance of Jacinda Ardern’s choice of baby name