One of the largest icebergs in the world — a hulk three times the size of Greater London — will now be known as “Melting Bob” after a six-year-old boy won a competition to give it a name.

Max Dolan, from Winchester, beat 500 entrants in a naming contest set by the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, which has undertaken to use the name as it tracks Bob on its journey through the Southern Ocean.

The 101-mile-long iceberg, which was known by its codename C19A, is expected to roam the seas for a decade as it melts from its present size of 1,985 sq miles to nothing. It is now 1,600 miles to the southwest of New Zealand.

Max, who goes to St Bede Church of England Primary School, was entered into the competition by his mother, Pia, after they discussed the best names for an iceberg on his way home from school.

Ms Dolan, 43, had read about the competition in The Times. “I said to Max, ‘If you wanted to name an iceberg, what would you want to call it?' He said: ‘Is it melting?' We talked about it bobbing in the sea and we came up with the name Melting Bob.”

She entered the name through the website of the Hay Festival, which helped to organise the judging, but did not tell Max in case he got upset if he did not win. She said that she had always had a fascination with the Antarctic and had to abandon a planned expedition to the South Pole when she became pregnant with Max.

Max explained yesterday why he thought Melting Bob was a good name. “Because of global warming, ice melts,” he said. “And it goes up and down in the sea, so it bobs.” He said that being the only person to have named an iceberg was “the best thing ever in my entire life”.

He will be able to monitor Bob's progress by studying satellite images sent to him by scientists at the United States National Ice Centre , which tracks all significant icebergs that break off from Antarctic glaciers.

The judging panel comprised Dame Jacqueline Wilson, the bestselling author of the Tracy Beaker books, and Julian Dowdeswell, director of the institute. Dame Jacqueline said that Melting Bob was ideal because it was a clever play on words. “It is wholly appropriate for an entity which, as Max points out, is both bobbing and melting,” she said. “It also has a very friendly ring to it, which helps us to relate to it, making the iceberg seem more like a friend who we should look after.”

Professor Dowdeswell said that Max, by luck or judgment, had selected a name that refers to the two main causes for the destruction of icebergs. “They melt, and they fragment because of the bending motion caused by the long-period waves in the ocean swell,” he said. The large, table-like icebergs flex as the ocean swell goes through them. The bobbing and the flexing causes big bergs to break up into smaller ones, which melt faster.”

Other names submitted by children aged between 3 and 12 included “Kangaroo Desert”, “White Fright”, “Vast Tip” and “Antarc-Ticker”.

Bob, once the largest iceberg in the world, is notorious among scientists in the Antarctic because it was a hazard to supply ships trying to reach the American base near McMurdo Sound.

It was created in May 2002 when it cleaved from the Ross ice shelf. Scientists named it C19A because it is the19th iceberg to be tracked from the “C” sector of the Ross ice shelf. It is now the fifth-largest iceberg after shrinking by 500 sq miles.

Icebergs the size of Melting Bob are created every three to five years, but scientists expect larger ones to appear more frequently as climate change causes Antarctic glaciers to retreat at a faster rate.

Professor Dowdeswell also wished to reassure Max that Melting Bob was no longer a danger to shipping. It is a large, tabular iceberg rather than a “growler”, which is too small for ships to detect.

Times recommends

• Energy-saving ideas from switched-on professor
• Rooks are as clever with tools as chimpanzees
• Burping of the lambs blows roast off menu