San Diego Baby Panda Gets A Name

The baby panda at the San Diego Zoo got a special present to celebrate her 100-day birthday — a name.

Zoo officials announced Thursday that the cub will be called Su Lin. The name — one of five options in an online poll — means "a little bit of something very cute" in Chinese, according to the zoo.

Su Lin, which got 44 percent of the more than 70,000 votes cast, also was the name of the first giant panda brought to the United States in 1936 by adventurer Ruth Harkness.

That male cub, incorrectly believed to be a female at first, was named after the sister-in-law of Quentin Young, a wildlife explorer who assisted Harkness in her journeys through China.

The San Diego zoo followed Chinese tradition by waiting 100 days after the cub's Aug. 2 birth to name her.

The five names were submitted by the zoo's Giant Panda Team and approved by the People's Republic of China, which owns Su Lin and her parents, Bai Yun, the zoo's adult female, and Gao Gao, the adult male.

The second-place name, with 35 percent of the vote was Bao Bei, which means "precious, priceless, treasure."

Su Lin still has trouble standing and has not yet left her den. The 10-pound ball of fur can be seen by the public on the zoo's Panda Cam.

She is the third panda born at the Balboa Park zoo. Her brother, Mei Sheng, which means "Born in the USA," remains there. The zoo's first cub, Hua Mei, which means "China USA," has since returned to China and become a mother.

The cubs are usually returned to China at age 3.