Online poll picks panda cub’s name

Thanks to 50,000 online voters, the San Diego Zoo’s newest panda cub finally has a name: Zhen Zhen.

Pronounced Jun Jun (rhymes with Run Run), the 4-month-old panda’s name means “Precious” in the Mandarin Chinese dialect.

The zoo’s Giant Panda team narrowed the 2,400 submitted names to a field of four finalists. Zhen Zhen garnered 36% of the vote, besting Li Hua (Beautiful China), Ming Zhu (Bright Treasure) and Xiao Li (Little Beauty).

Keep reading after the jump to see which names failed to make the cut.

Bloggers — who had taken to calling the newborn Ming Xing, meaning bright star or celebrity — bristled when their name didn’t make the final four.

Among other popular but rejected names:
* Pan Diego
* Zoo Zoo
* Bam Boo

Do you like the new panda cub’s name?

— Brady MacDonald, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

[Photo: San Diego Zoo]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 at 11:28 am by Brady MacDonald and is filed under Family & Kids, San Diego, San Diego Zoo, Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.