The Columbus Blue Jackets have one of the more obscure names and it was mocked as being too similar to the Blues. I still like the name.
The Minnesota Wild is an awful name. Same with the Tampa Bay Rays. And screw the fundamentalists who pressured the Rays to drop the Devil from the original name.
The New England Patriots. Not the name so much, but the vagueness of their base location. Are they really worried that the people of Vermont might be offended if they called themselves the Boston Patriots?
I have nothing against the Arena Football League. In fact, I enjoy watching it. But I was happy to learn that the Los Angeles KISS folded.
Best sports names? Blue collar names like Packers, Oilers, Steelers, Brewers.
Pretty horrible are those named after animals that aren’t impressive.
Absolute worst is the Utah Jazz. That’s the freaking worst of all time. It’s bad on just about every bad axis.
Eh, it does nothing for me. I get the Civil War history and all, but a) “Columbus Blue Jackets” is kind of a clumsy mouthful to say out loud, and b) the name just feels staid and musty to me, the antithesis of Hockey.
When I was a kid, my best friend came to the house all excited. He had gotten his first pack of baseball cards for the season. “Look! They misprinted the name! They say he plays for the Athletics. This is going to be worth something!"
“Sorry, Dave. He does play for the Athletics. The A’s is just a nickname."
Poor Dave was quite disappointed. In fact, I don’t think he believed me, and I had to pull out my baseball encyclopedia to prove it.
There’s a back story. Owner Billy Sullivan was so pissed at all the Boston pols wanting their palms greased when he was trying to get a stadium built there that he took the city’s name off the franchise when he moved it to Foxboro.
They are actually closer to Providence than Boston. But it’s likely an attempt to get the entire area as potential fanbase.
In fact, they used to be the Boston Patriots. They changed the name in '71, when they moved from Boston to suburban Foxborough, MA (edit: though, as ISiddiqui notes, they’re closer now to Providence than Boston). At that time, they apparently wanted to change their name to the “Bay State Patriots” (reflecting all of Massachusetts), but the NFL rejected that name, and they went with New England, instead (which was, undoubtedly, designed to make them sound inclusive of the entire region).
“Soon it was commonplace for entire teams to change cities in search of greater profits. The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles where there are no lakes. The Oilers moved to Tennessee where there is no oil. The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City where they don’t allow music. The Raiders moved from Oakland to LA back to Oakland. No-one in LA seemed to notice.”
-BASEketball
…and now Las Vegas.
Maybe the so-bad-it’s-good category, but I’m not sure what a Demon Deacon is supposed to be except that it reeks of some old-timey anti-Catholicism (founded as a Baptist school but currently secular).
We’re only down to two teams fitting this pattern now, and they should be kept for historical reasons, but naming teams the {Color} Sox was a stupid idea.
The Albuquerque Isotopes are of course the best name. Sure it’s a Simpsons reference, but also has some relevance to the area. The Simpsons also had the intentionally bad name for an NBA team, “the Springfield Excitement.”
I reckon it’s an improvement over Expos.
Better than the New England Patriots of Boston, I guess.
Of course the 49ers don’t play in SF anymore. Hell, the NYC football teams play in New Jersey.
To be fair, it’s literally 10 miles from NYC (for comparison, Levi Stadium, where the 49ers play is ~40 miles from San Francisco)
Fort Wayne has both the TinCaps (minor league baseball) and the Mad Ants (NBA Developmental). The Mad Ants I get, named after General “Mad" Anthony Wayne. The TinCaps I’m not sure about. I lived in Fort Wayne for more than a decade, so I think I should know, but I don’t.
I know, and I’m okay with that (NYC has less room for a stadium), it’s just funny.
SFO isn’t really near San Francisco, either.
Makes me think of these guys (with the UK definition of “mad”): crazy ant.
John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman lived and is buried in Fort Wayne. “TinCaps” refers to the apocryphal depiction of him wearing a cooking pot for a hat.
We could have a whole thread on the origins of team names. (There probably has been one, actually.)
My favorite team name was the Werewolves of London, Ontario, who played baseball in the Frontier League from 1999-2001. They had a mascot named Warren Z. Vaughn. 
The Texans is the best name that any Texas team can claim. You’re not from Texas so you don’t appreciate the insane way that these people (I was born in Lubbock, but I’m an apostate) believe in their Texan-ness.
The old Washington Senators were referred to in the local and national press as The (Our) National Team, and were called the Nationals as much as they were called the Senators. The new name was natural in the extreme. On the other hand, I truly wanted them to be named (not original with me), the Washington Georges. Get it?
I should have known that. There’s a fall festival in Johnny Appleseed Park where his grave is. We would go there occasionally.
I always thought Expos was the dumbest name in baseball. Why name the team after a short-lived event like Expo 67?
Toronto Raptors is pretty dumb too. The beast is not only extinct, it has nothing to do with Canada. (They were from Mongolia.) And real velociraptors were about the size of a turkey.
Houston Texans. You mean there is another well known city named Houston in a different state and we have to call them Texans so people know.
What exactly is a Red Wing? Wiki says the NHL owner changed the name to reflect Detroit’s automobile industry.
Is Canucks a derogatory name for Canadians or not? I remember there was condemnation of Nixon dirty tricksters for forging a letter saying Ed Muskie used the word “Canucks”. But the Vancouver NHL team was using it.
New York Rangers? Where? Alright the original owner/founder was nicknamed “Tex”. But still…
Well, there is a Houston, Missouri in Texas County. It has just a couple of stoplights, so it doesn’t meet your well-known city criteria.