The baby panda born in August at Vienna’s Schoenbrunn Zoo is to be called Fu Hu, or Happy Tiger in Mandarin, the zoo announced.
The name was chosen via an online vote in which more than 25,000 people took part, the zoo said in a statement.
By the time voting closed at midnight on Sunday, 50.1 per cent had voted for the name Fu Hu, while 40.8 per cent voted for the name Wei Xing which means Vienna’s Joy.
The cub – only the second in Europe to be conceived naturally in captivity – will be officially named at a special naming ceremony on December 13, which will be attended by a delegation from Beijing.
According to Chinese tradition, giant pandas are not officially named before they are 100 days old, because the mortality rate in the first year is so high, at about 40 per cent, according to the zoo.
Fu Hu is the baby brother of Fu Long, now three, who was Europe’s first panda to be naturally conceived in captivity, but who has since been returned to China and now lives at the Bifengxia panda reserve in Sichuan province.
Pandas, even when conceived abroad, are the property of the Republic of China and only loaned to foreign zoos.
Mother Yang Yang and father Long Hui are also due to leave Schoenbrunn Zoo, the oldest in the world, in 2013.