The Cincinnati Zoo’s newest addition to their hippo bloat has been officially named. Famous Fiona the hippo’s little bother is named Fritz!
The name was chosen by the public who was given two options: Fritz or Ferguson. Zoo officials say that Fritz got 56% of the 220,000 total votes.
“We would have been happy with either name, but we really think the name Fritz fits this spunky little guy’s personality,” Cincinnati Zoo’s head hippo keeper Wendy Rice said in a release. “We also thought it was funny that it was suggested because ‘Fritz’ is here due to Bibi’s birth control being ‘on the fritz’.”
The zoo asked for name suggestions for Bibi’s newest baby, and after receiving over 90,000 suggestions coming from every U.S. state and over 60 different countries, they gave people the choice to vote between their final two options.
An account representative from the company that created the online form to vote, Jotform, even took notice of the sheer number of people invested in naming the Cincinnati Zoo family's latest addition.
"In all my years at Jotform I can't recall an instance when I witnessed an organization receive that many form responses in such a short time," VP of marketing and communications at Jotform, Chad Reid, said in a release. "We're thrilled that our powerful form software played a small part in Fritz receiving his awesome name."
Bibi, who gave birth to Fiona prematurely in 2017 at just 29 pounds, became pregnant unexpectedly (she was on birth control), after the introduction of male hippo Tucker into her habitat last year.
It was announced that Bibi was pregnant in April of this year. Her due date was Aug. 15 and keepers say she gave birth within a healthy 30-day window of the date on Aug. 3.
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is located at 3400 Vine St., Avondale. Tickets and more info: cincinnatizoo.org.
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