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I'd like to know which of the following is good English:

a. The baby tiger Bobo weighs 20 kilos now.

b. Bobo the baby tiger weighs 20 kilos now.

If there is more than one baby tiger in the zoo, can b still be used?

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  • They are both fine. In [a] "Bobo" is the appostive modifier of "baby tiger". Proper names can occur as head with a definite NP as appositive, as in [b].
    – BillJ
    Commented Nov 24, 2018 at 14:28

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Both are grammatical and idiomatic, and there is no problem with using #2 if there is more than one baby tiger in the zoo, just as you could say "Harry Kane, the Tottenham footballer".

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  • Why "the" in your "Harry Kane, the Tottenham footballer" example, if there is more than one Tottenham footballer?
    – Apollyon
    Commented Nov 24, 2018 at 12:05
  • For the same reason we say "Neil Armstrong, the astronaut" so that he is not confused with Neil Armstrong, the carpet salesman. We are specifying which one we mean and expect the listener to know of or expect the listener to be interested in, as a topic of conversation. We use the for all the reasons opposite those which ask for a. I don't want to presume, but for the sake of example, I might say to your grandmother "His favorite player is Harry Kane, a Tottenham footballer" if I didn't expect her to know already who Harry Kane is.
    – TimR
    Commented Nov 24, 2018 at 12:12

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