A sports team’s nickname can be good for a variety of reasons. It could be inspiring, intimidating, cool, classy, clever, or funny. Any of these qualities could make a fan proud to rally around the team that goes by that name. Some team names, though, lack all of these qualities and should be thought of as an embarrassment to the team. What pro sports teams’ nicknames are the worst? Here are my votes for the worst 3:
Chicago White Sox. White Socks. What could be more boring, more uninspiring, than white socks? Spelling it with an x does not make it exciting, although it keeps it from getting worse than third.
Philadelphia Phillies. The Philadelphia guys from Philadelphia. How creative. :rolleyes:
Washington Redskins. Redskins – a racial slur, found offensive by a majority of Native Americans (in a 1996 survey). Tasteless and disparaging trumps dull and insipid.
The Redskins was the first one I thought of when I saw the thread title.
The Columbus Blue Jackets of the NHL…when I first heard that name, I wondered how much they paid the guy who came up with that name. Did he just look at his closet for inspiration?
The Denver Nuggets…yes, I realize that the name is probably a reference to Colorado’s mining history, but still…nuggets?
If I could expand on the OP a bit and throw in team nicknames that don’t really “fit” with where the team’s home is, then I would have to go with the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA.
Both teams were originally elsewhere. The Jazz were originally in New Orleans, and the nickname made perfect sense for a team playing there. Sorry, but I just don’t hear much about Salt Lake City and jazz music in the same sentence.
And the Lakers were originally based in Minneapolis. Retaining that name in a place like Los Angeles, which seems to have an extremely sparse collection of lakes, has always struck me as a little odd.
No, the team was formed after the movie came out. I distinctly remember my shock that Disney had the gall to pull out that name and use if for real. Duhhhhh.
In the Green Bay Press-Gazette on Aug. 29, 1919, two weeks before the team’s first organized game, George Calhoun first publicly identified the team as the “Indian Packers.”
Curly Lambeau received $500 from his employer, the Indian Packing Co., for uniforms and equipment, and for use of the company’s lot for practice. In exchange, Lambeau and Calhoun agreed to call the team “Packers.”
It’s like Cardinal said. When Disney got the team, people were joking that they might call it the Mighty Ducks. When they actually did it, people were puking. I don’t think the league should have allowed it, but I guess money talks.
The Mighty Ducks are the most ridiculous team name in sports. It’s not even an argument. Honestly, it’s embarassing to my hometown. As if the Angels aren’t enough of a sissy-sounding team (although I do love them above all other teams in all other sports).
But really, it’s an extension of a phenomenon that’s been going on the past decade with new teams. Their nicknames generally suck ass. The only really clever one has been the Colorado Rockies. I mean, look at the examples:
Tampa Bay Devil Rays - lame
Florida Marlins - lame
Arizona Diamondbacks - lame
Colorado Rockies - fairly clever
Toronto Raptors - lame
Memphis Grizzlies - lame
Columbus Blue Jackets - OK, I actually like this one
Tampa Bay Lightning - lame
Phoenix Coyotes - lame
Colorado Avalanche - lame
Minnesota Wild - lame
And the list goes on. But I like names like White Sox, Red Sox, Dodgers, Canadiens, Lakers, Celtics, Pistons, Packers, etc. that have some history to them. And not just old teams, but names that came about in interesting ways - not just consulting the marketing department.
For example, a baseball team should never have been named after a fish. Twice. That’s unacceptable. The only animal that should be a baseball nickname is some sort of bird. The Tigers and the Cubs get exceptions because they both got their nicknames out of common usage - the folks called the Detroit club the Tigers because of their orange and black striped socks and folks called the Chicago club the Cubs because around the early 1890s they had a bunch of young players. It had to competing nicknames, the Colts and the Cubs and the Cubs won out in common usage and became the official nickname.
Sometimes knowing the history of a team’s name makes it better and sometimes it makes it worse. “Dodgers” only makes sense, for instance, if you understand that they took that name officially only after being popularly known as the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers. Although their move to L.A. made their nickname inappropriate. The Chicago Cubs, to add to Neurotik’s story, were originally called the “Bear Cubs” by a sportswriter in 1902, and the name stuck. Before then, they had been known as the Orphans (1898-1902), Colts (1890-1897) and White Stockings (1870-1889). Even though Cubs isn’t exactly the most intimidating or inspiring name, its history makes it a good one.
The White Sox, on the other hand, chose the name White Stockings when they moved to Chicago in 1900, probably in part to take advantage of the name recognition from the Cubs’ previous use of that name. They shortened it to White Sox within a year. So White Sox really does mean White Socks, or White Stockings, which is a very plain, 19th century kind of name. Further, it was basically taken from another team, the Chicago Cubs.
Now, Jazz doesn’t exactly strike fear into opponents . Unless of course it’s, “Hey Dan, we’re going to a 4 day Jazz festival.” That would strike fear in me. If a team is going to be named after a style of music, I think the next team should be named after Alternative rock. YEAH, a second Toronto hockey team named The Toronto Alternative. Now I could totally get behind that!
I thought that “Phillies” was named after a young (female? race?) horse, not “guys from Philadelphia.”
Some names weren’t so bad before the team moved. Once a team moves, it kind of messes up the idea of having a regionally inspired name. The Memphis Grizzlies used to play in Vancouver, which I can see. I’ve never been to Western Canada, but it’s not a stretch for me to believe that there are Grizzlies in that part of the country. But Memphis? Would any grizzly bear want to live near Memphis? The Utah Jazz doesn’t make as much sense as the New Orleans Jazz, which was the original city. Atlanta Flames makes more sense than Calgary Flames, though I don’t think it’s the worst example of mis-named teams. There are far more lakes in Minnesota than there are in Southern California, as someone pointed out already. Since most people don’t know what “Dodger” refers to, it doesn’t seem as out of place as some of the others, though it was a specific Brooklyn reference.
I think the worst offenders are the more recently named teams. Can anyone guess when the Toronto Raptors came into the league? How long have Raptors been extinct for? What might have got them back into the spotlight? Of course, it was Jurassic Park.
For me the absolute most obnoxious are the teams that don’t have plurals. WNBA teams have taken the abuse of this trend to another level, lucky for me I don’t watch women’s basketball. Still there is the Heat, Magic, Avalanche, Wild, and Lightning.
I’m going to have to go with the Mighty Ducks too, being named after a movie team and all. Also noteworthy: The New Jersey Nets. C’mon, that’s like having a football team called “The New Jersey Endzones” or a baseball team called “The New Jersey Homeplates”.
The ones that grate the most for me are the ones that are more commonly used as adjectives, like the Minnesota Wild, or ones that don’t lend themselves to an easy pluralization, like the Miami Heat or the Orlando Magic.
But really, the longer a team exists under a name, the more tolerant I am of it. I get used to it. (Of course, some names are anachronistic, like the Lakers…)
My personal least favorite is the Baltimore Ravens. This simply is not a good name for a football team. Mister Poe: great writer, but bad influence on naming an NFL team. Perhaps my distaste for the name is accentuated by the ugly jerseys
I also frown upon non-plural names (i.e. Wild, Jazz, and many of the Major League Soccer team names)
The Phillies’ official site reports that, in 1883, Al "Reach named the team the Phillies, a take-off on the team’s geographic roots, “Philly.” " They brag that “the Phillies are the oldest, continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional sports,” proving once again that old nicknames are not necessarily good ones.
I think that Knickerbockers is another bad old nickname, although I don’t much care for the team or the city, either. Perhaps people from New York actually like the name.