BAGHDAD, IRAQ: When an Iraqi lieutenant ordered him off the bus, Saddam Hussein thought his time was up. Limbs quaking, he obediently trailed after the Shiite soldier - who then stood sharply to attention and saluted him.

"He chanted songs to the glory of the former president. Then, happy with his joke, he told me to get back in the bus, to my great relief," said the Iraqi photographer with the same name as the dictator who was executed in December 2006.

The man with the infamous namesake is based in Fallujah, the town which symbolised the anti-American uprising after 2003, and he hasn't always had an easy life. But he insists the moniker has done him more good than harm despite the other Saddam's evil reputation.

He was born in 1979, the year that Saddam Hussein came to power. With his father absent, his mother and aunts failed to agree on a first name for the eldest of seven boys and it was the doctor who suggested calling him Saddam when he learned that the family name is Hussein.

Physically, the younger Saddam Hussein looks nothing like the man after whom he was named. He has light-coloured hair and eyes, while the dictator's were dark. He is stocky while the president was tall and he is timid while the older version talked with a booming voice.

However, the name brought certain advantages to the youngster. "In exams, the teachers gave me 10 extra marks because of my name," he admitted, adding that it also helped with girls.

When Saddam was overthrown in April 2003, the younger man's mother begged him to changed his name but he refused. "It has served me well," he said.

Later, working as a photographer with an American permit, the name won him respect from insurgents he was filming.

"They were mostly former soldiers, security services agents or members of the Republican Guard, so being called Saddam Hussein made an impression," he said.

On one occasion, he was hit in a shoulder by two bullets during a shootout in his shop between a member of the Islamic Army and two Al-Qaeda fighters. At the hospital, his family called out: "Saddam Hussein is wounded," prompting the doctors to treat him like a head of state, he says.

When the despot was hanged, his namesake was "devastated." "I was gutted. Now I feel as if I am the only Saddam Hussein in the entire world," he said.