Zoo Atlanta's Giant Panda Twins Named on 100th Day of Life

The first surviving pair of giant panda twins born in the US have been named in accordance with the ancient Chinese tradition that reserves naming the pandas until they are 100 days old.

But the days of "Cub A" and "Cub B" are over, Zoo Atlanta said Wednesday as it revealed the results of a national vote held to name the panda cubs.

The elder of the cubs is called Mei Lun and her two-minutes-younger sibling is called Mei Huan. The cubs' names are a derivation of an old Chinese idiom -- "Mei Lun Mei Huan" -- which has come to mean something that is indescribably beautiful and magnificent.

The panda's names (pronounced "may loon" and "may hwaan") were announced live Wednesday on the TV program Good Morning America. More than 51,000 people voted for the panda's names on the GMA website. The vote was among five sets of names suggested by Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China, Zoo Atlanta officials said.

Click here to see the names and meanings that did not win the vote.

Naming the pandas on their 100th day of life follows an old tradition in China that holds that when a child has reached his or her 100th day of life, he or she has survived the most fragile and risky stages of infancy and can now be considered to be on track for a successful future.

The panda twins' older siblings, Mei Lan, Xi Lan and Po, were also named according to this tradition, as are many, if not all, of the pandas born in US zoos. The newborn giant panda cub at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. is also awaiting it's 100th day of life to be named.

Mei Lun and Mei Huan were the fourth and fifth babies born to mother Lun Lun and father Yang Yang. All of the 15-year-old pair's cubs were the product of artificial insemination.

Giant pandas are an endangered species only found wild in the mountains forests of central China. About 1,600 giant panda live in the wild, while another 300 are in captivity, mostly in China, Reuters reported.