Pat Dollard

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President Barack Obama already adorns t-shirts, coffee cups, wine bottles and even lipstick.

Now, the company that makes Beanie Babies has come out with a pair of plush dolls named “Marvelous Malia” and “Sweet Sasha.”

But officials from Illinois-based Ty, Inc. insist the darling dolls are not modeled after the First Daughters.

“Sasha and Malia are beautiful names… that worked very well with the dolls we were making,” Tania Lundeen, Ty senior vice president of sales told CNN.

“We did not make the dolls to physically resemble either of the Obama girls,” Lundeen said, adding that the dolls follow “the exact patterns” used for other “Ty Girlz.”

The dolls, which hit stores across the United States earlier this month, are the first African-American folls added to the collection, which includes Bubbly Britney (Spears), Lucky Lindsay (Lohan) and Precious Paris (Hilton).

But Lundeen said the company avoids naming dolls for “any particular living individual” because it doesn’t want to “impose any preconceived ideas” that would interfere with how children play with them.

Marvelous Malia has a single ponytail and is dressed in jeans and a blue shirt while Sweet Sasha has two braids and wears a pink skirt over aqua leggings. They retail for 9.99 dollars.

Ty did not seek permission to name the dolls, which some see as exploitative and inappropriate.

“We need to remember they are still children themselves,” Parenting magazine editor Christina Vercelletto told the Chicago Tribune.

“To kind of mass-market them as stars and turn them into dolls who are a little more mature than they are? The message: Girls should look older than they do.” (AFP)