Bao Bao, Chunky Biscuit, and Sir Flops-a-Lot: A Definitive Ranking of the Most Unhinged Panda Names in History

Naming a baby is hard. You've got family opinions, cultural traditions, the eternal fear of a bad nickname, and at least one relative who insists on suggesting something truly terrible at every holiday dinner. It's a lot.

Naming a panda, however? That's an entirely different beast — pun absolutely intended. Panda naming sits at the intersection of international diplomacy, zoo marketing, internet democracy, and pure, unfiltered human chaos. The results are, without exception, magnificent.

Let's take a tour through some of the greatest, weirdest, and most iconic panda names ever bestowed upon these magnificent black-and-white legends.

The Official Chinese Names: Poetic, Layered, and Occasionally Just a Vibe

Pandas born at the Chengdu Research Base and other Chinese breeding facilities are typically given names with meaning — lyrical, two-character combinations that reflect nature, hope, or personality. Think Mei Lun (beautiful and orderly), Ya Ya (elegant), or Xiao Qi Ji (little miracle), the name given to the cub born at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in 2020 after years of unsuccessful breeding attempts.

Xiao Qi Ji is genuinely a great name. It tells a story. It carries weight. It makes you feel things. The keepers at the National Zoo clearly understood the assignment.

And then there's Hua Mei, Lun Lun, Mei Xiang — names that roll off the tongue like a gentle breeze through a bamboo grove. Beautiful. Dignified. Fitting for creatures that represent an entire nation's soft power strategy.

Pudgy Pandas Ranking: 9/10. Elegant, meaningful, would absolutely name a child this.

American Zoo Names: Where Things Get Wonderfully Chaotic

Once pandas land on US soil and zoos start holding public naming contests, the vibe shifts considerably. The people have opinions. The people have memes. The people, it turns out, really want to name a panda something that makes their coworkers spit out their coffee.

Enter Bao Bao — the wildly beloved giant panda cub born at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in 2013. Her name, meaning "precious treasure" in Mandarin, was chosen from a public vote with over 120,000 submissions. It's sweet, it's perfect, and it launched approximately one million Instagram accounts and a merch empire that would make any brand jealous.

But the public voting process doesn't always go so smoothly. Zoo naming contests across the US have yielded suggestions including — and we are not making these up — Bamboo McBambooface (a spiritual successor to the legendary Boaty McBoatface incident), Chonk Biscuit, Gerald, and at least three separate submissions of Panda Express, which is either deeply funny or a legal liability, depending on who you ask.

Pudgy Pandas Ranking: 8/10 for Bao Bao. 11/10 for Chonk Biscuit. Gerald is a sleeper hit.

The Twin Name Game: Double the Pandas, Double the Chaos

When pandas have twins — which happens more often in captivity than in the wild — the naming pressure doubles. Zoos and breeding centers have to come up with pairs that feel cohesive without being too cutesy. Spoiler: they almost always go full cutesy, and we love them for it.

The Memphis Zoo gave us Le Le and Ya Ya, a beloved pair whose names both nod to elegance and grace. The Atlanta Zoo's twin girls born in 2016 were named Mei Lun and Mei Huan — meaning beautiful and joyful — which is lovely.

But then there are the internet-submitted twin name pairs from various zoo contests, which have included Waffles and Syrup, Yin and Yang (a classic, honestly), Left Panda and Right Panda (submitted by someone who clearly does not have time for this), and the absolute masterpiece suggestion of Beyoncé and Jay-Z, which, to be fair, tracks.

Pudgy Pandas Ranking: Waffles and Syrup gets a 10/10. Left Panda and Right Panda is chaotic neutral energy we respect.

International Panda Names: A Global Showcase of Creativity

Pandas gifted to or loaned to countries outside China get names that reflect the host nation's culture, language, and occasionally its sense of humor.

In Belgium, the pandas at Pairi Daiza are named Tian Bao and Bao Di — perfectly charming. In Austria, the Vienna Zoo's panda is named Fu Long, meaning lucky dragon. Elegant.

And then there's Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, which named its pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang — Sweetie and Sunshine — which sounds like a morning talk show and we are completely here for it. Yang Guang, in particular, became a celebrity in his own right, with Scottish tabloids covering his every mood with a level of enthusiasm typically reserved for actual celebrities.

In Japan, where panda mania runs approximately as deep as it does in the US, naming contests routinely generate tens of thousands of votes and considerable national debate. A cub born at Kobe Oji Zoo was named Tanchán after a public vote — a name so beloved it became a regional brand.

Pudgy Pandas Ranking: Sweetie and Sunshine get an 8/10. Tanchán gets extra points for becoming an economic force.

The Unofficial Names: What the Internet Actually Calls Them

And then there's the shadow naming economy — the nicknames the internet bestows regardless of what zoos officially decide.

Fubao, the beloved panda born at Everland in South Korea, became a global sensation not just because of her official name (which means lucky treasure) but because the internet collectively decided she was a chaotic little gremlin and named her energy accordingly. Fan communities gave her unofficial titles like "the chaos agent" and "bamboo goblin queen" in various online spaces, which is honestly more accurate than any official name could be.

Bei Bei, another National Zoo alumni, was frequently referred to online as "a cloud with legs," which: accurate.

And the collective internet has given us terms like "round boy," "fluff unit," and "professional tumbler" to describe various pandas whose falling-down-hills videos have gone viral — unofficial names that say more about these animals than any two-character combination ever could.

Pudgy Pandas Ranking: "Cloud with legs" is the greatest panda name ever created. 10/10. No notes.

So What's YOUR Panda Name?

Here's the thing about panda naming: it's one of the few places on the internet where humans collectively agree to be joyful. No arguments. No ratio-ing. Just thousands of people submitting "Bamboo McBambooface" and meaning it with their whole hearts.

We want to keep that energy going. Drop your best panda name suggestion in the comments below — ridiculous, poetic, diplomatic, or completely unhinged. The only rule is that it has to feel like it belongs on a 200-pound bear who eats bamboo for 14 hours a day and has never once felt bad about it.

Our current frontrunner from the Pudgy Pandas editorial team: Brigadier Fluffington III.

We stand by it. 🐼