Name matters. Whether you name your three cats after the three hobbits from The Lord of the Rings or you give them names close to your heart, you must agree when I say that names matter. The Chinese zoo Jinhua decided to run a poll to assign a name to their new four month old gorilla. The response from the public was huge, people from all over the world voted and exactly 73,345 thought that the name Harambe McHarambeface was suitable for the animal.
After Harambe (the Cincinnati gorilla) was shot dead for the apparent safety of a child earlier this year, it became one of the most popular 2016 memes on social media. The name for the Chinese gorilla was chosen for some people as a joke and as a sign of respect from others. On the other hand, the structure of the name was inspired from another famous poll which almost gave name to the new super technologic polar ship: Boaty McBoatface.
As much as everyone would have loved knowing that there is a gorilla called Harambe McHarambeface, the mash-up name was dismissed after the poll, as it would have been too hard to translate it into Chinese. Reactions on social media were various, and one guy commented that ‘democracy and the Internet are always a bad combo’. The final decision was to name the baby gorilla Heijin: the name that came second in the polls.
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– By Alessia Fabbioni
