… The nickname, of course, derives from the zoo’s much-quoted description of the panda at his July 9 birth — he was the size of “a stick of butter.” But it was two local bloggers, Catherine Andrews and her boyfriend, Tom Lee , who actually came up with the moniker. On Aug. 2, Andrews posted an entry on local blog collective DCist.com that she casually headlined “Butterstick’s a boy!” Within days, blogger friends started actively promoting the name; within weeks, it had entered common parlance.
“I thought it was cute, but I didn’t think it would develop this weird cultlike following,” says Andrews. (A proposal by our snarky Style colleagues to call him Parkay never seemed to catch on.) Despite a fervent write-in campaign for Butterstick, the cub was officially named Tai Shan when he turned 100 days old. But now the zoo seems to have softened. …