This is not the first time that a public naming contest has gone off the rails.

The debate in Germany is reminiscent of the attempt to name a $287 million British polar research vessel that drew an overwhelming favorite among internet users: Boaty McBoatface. (In the end, one of the boat’s submarines was given that name, while the research vessel itself was christened the R.R.S. Sir David Attenborough.)

The influential German newspaper Bild wrote in a sharply worded article on Thursday: “Bild is choosing to call the panda cubs Hong and Kong because it’s China’s brutal politics that lies behind these panda babies.” It added, “Bild is demanding of the German government that it reacts in a political way to the birth of these small bears.”

Stefan Jacobs, the editor behind the campaign to name the pandas, said in an interview, “The news of panda twins clearly had the potential to be the talk of the town.” He added, “I like asking our Berliner readership these questions — you always get some really funny and really smart answers.”

But the choices that rolled in were fraught with political themes. Among the other suggestions were Pay Pay and Coco & Chanel (because of the cost of raising the pandas); Hinz and Kunz (a nod to German Everyman names); and Tien Tien and Anmen Anmen (in memory of the Tiananmen Square protests).

Pandas were used in 1972 as a high-profile symbol of diplomatic rapprochement between the United States and China, when Ling-Ling and Hsing Hsing arrived during the Nixon era to live at the National Zoo in Washington.

There are currently fewer than 2,000 adult pandas living in their natural habitat. The conception and birth of the animals in captivity are extremely rare and difficult, said Andreas Knieriem, the director of the Berlin Zoo.

“Pandas are not only specialists when it comes to their bamboo diet,” he said in statement. “They are also known for a very specific mating behavior.”