“Name Us, Baos!” Public invited to participate in naming Fu Bao’s younger twin siblings

Everland invited the public to name the twin baby pandas, now 48 days old.

Forty-eight-day-old twin pandas at Everland. Courtesy of Everland

On August 24, the Resort Group of Samsung C&T announced an invitation for public participation on- and offline to name the twin baby pandas that were born on July 7. Since they are twins, participants can submit a pair of names along with the meaning of each name.

The names of the twin pandas will be determined in a four-stage process. Beginning Thursday, Everland invited the public to participate in naming the twins by posting comments to the public invitation posted on the company’s official social media accounts such as Instagram and YouTube; the Naver café, Zootopia; and the YouTube channel, Talking Zoo PPUPPA TV. They will then select ten pairs of names after comprehensively reviewing the characteristics of pandas, the meaning and pronunciation of the names, and names submitted by multiple people.

Everland will put the names to an online vote through its website and narrow down the candidates to four pairs. Eventually the names will be selected after a final stage--an on- and offline vote on the company’s website, social media and on site at Panda World.

The company plans to disclose the names of the twin pandas in the coming October, when they turn a hundred days old.

The twins, now 48 days old, have begun to distinguish surrounding objects and can slowly move around by themselves crawling on their stomachs. The twins, which each weighed 180g and 140g at birth, have grown more than ten-fold and now weigh around 2kg. Everland plans to disclose the twins to the public when they are about six months old after they adapt to the outside environment.

Everland has also begun discussing the return of the giant panda, Fu Bao, with China. Fu Bao is the older sister of the newborn twins. She was born between Ai Bao (female) and Le Bao (male), the only giant pandas at the Everland zoo, in 2020.

In a press briefing on Thursday, Chung Dong-hee, the director of the Everland zoo, explained, “In the panda contract with China, the time of the return is specified as before the panda turns four years old,” and said, “We began discussing the return with China last month, when Fu Bao celebrated her third birthday, but we have yet to receive a specific answer.”

Chung said, “Since there is a past case where Le Bao and Ai Bao came to Korea in March and since its somewhat hot in May to July, we carefully expect Fu Bao to return around March, sometime between February and April.”

Kang Chul-won, the zookeeper famous as the panda’s grandfather, said, “I was well aware that we would have to part one day from when I first met Fu Bao, and I know that it is the right thing to do for Fu Bao to send her to China, so I’m not that sad.” He added, “Even if we send Fu Bao to China, I will never forget her. She will forever be in my memory.”