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So the Vienna cub born August 23, 2007 now has a name. And the winner is... (drumroll, please): Fu Long, which means "Lucky Dragon." The name was selected by an Internet vote, which you could participate in if you went to the Tiergarten Schönbrunn's German website. I was able to vote once I found an English news article which told me what all the names meant, then went to the German site to vote. The English site still has the welcome annoucement from the Zoo director -- I guess they haven't found anyone to translate the naming news yet.
For a good chuckle, here's the German to English translation of the naming announcement from Babelfish:
Fu Long, the lucky Drache!
The tuning is to end. The visitors of our Website decided to baptize
Viennese the Pandababy "Fu Long" - "the lucky Drache" translates. At
the beginning of of Decembers becomes a delegation "China Wildlife
Conservation Association" and the Chinese forest Ministry journeys,
which will lend its official name to the small one. The visitors of
the zoo will see that boy at the latest to in the middle of December
live to get.
One interesting note: the Vienna Zoo didn't wait until the cub was 100 days old, which is traditionally when the cubs are named according to Chinese custom. As best as I can tell from the above article, Chinese officials will come in mid-December to give the boy his official name. (Since Chinese authorities gave the zoo naming options, hopefully his official name won't be a different one.)
One amusing note: all the panda fans have to have something to call pandas before they're 100 days old. In Washington, Tai Shan was "Butterstick," after zoo officials announced he was the size of a stick of butter, and some DC bloggers helped the name catch on. In Atlanta, Mei Lan was Cub Cub (because her parents were Lun Lun and Yang Yang) or CubCake. The San Diego cub, whose naming ceremony has been postponed due to the wildfires, is being called BaiBee (Bai Yun's baby, get it?) or Bright Star (which is apparently what a group of people in San Diego are hoping will be selected.
Vienna panda fans , not to be outdone, have nicknamed their cub, "Kruemel," which means "Little Crumb." I can see how this one would stick, can't you?
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