Sorry, but I’ll take the Phillies and the Knicks a thousand times before I’ll take a generic animal team name like the Panthers or Bobcats or the Bears or whatnot.
I think you’re nuts for two reasons:
#1 The name was voted on by the fans. “Ravens” is what we wanted and what we got.
#2 AFAIK, it’s the only team name based upon a literary work, which makes it just a bit classier than Titans or Jaguars or Texans or Panthers, for example.
Is it really based on a literary work, or did people vote for it because of its ornithological association?
Arsenal (the English football/soccer team) are nicknamed the ‘Gooners’, apparently because that’s the way some of their Norwegian fans pronounced their real nickname, ‘The Gunners’.
Incidently, ‘The Gunners’ comes from when they were ‘Woolwich Arsenal’, before they wre hounded out of South London and relocated to Islington, North London.
These days they are probably the most politically correct club in the country and regularly field at least two openly gay players.
Any team name with New York in it.
Who are those players? I know that both Ljunberg and Campbell have been subject to rumours about their sexuality but both of them deny that they are homosexual. Infact I think that the late great Justin Fashanu was the only openly gay football player (in the UK at least).
Anyway I nominate Hartlepool United whose nickname is the “monkey hangers” after the legend that the good people of Hartlepool lynched a monkey (during the Napleonic wars?) after mistaking him for a Frenchman.
It’s the day after we lost to them… if the ‘New Eusebio’ had his boots on we would have been 3-0 up at half time.
The first casualty of North London derbies is the truth…
As for Hartlepool, they may not have hanged a monkey but they elected one as Mayor…
Classier than Titans??? I’ll take Greek Mythology for a team based in The Athens Of The South over any literary reference.
Of course, I’m really glad they didn’t decide to call my team The Twangers or Acuffs or something.
In addition to the offensively named Redskins, the Cleveland Indians bring up the bottom. Some might feel the same regarding the Canucks. Names like the Utah Jazz and the Mudhens (Toledo minor league baseball) may be plain stupid, but at least they don’t offend. Several college teams have changed their rude team names, why are professional sports immune to these sensibilities?
Oh, this is easy:
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Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Uber-lame, Disneyfied crap.
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Utah Jazz. In addition to being a stupid name for a team from Mormonland, “Jazz” is not a proper team name anyway. A team name should always be a plural noun, like “Yankees” or “Cowboys.” “Jazz” is nothing.
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Minnesota Wild. See #2.
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Toronto Raptors. Named after the popularity of Jurassic Park. Would be an OK name if it had been original, but it wasn’t. It could have been worse, though; some of the other names in the contest were “Toronto Scorpions,” “Toronto Terriers” and “Toronto Tarantulas.” I swear to God.
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Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Just an ugly-sounding name.
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Any WNBA team with a single non-plural name.
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Ditto, any other sport.
The worst I’ve ever heard on this continent, though, is a National Lacrosse League team called the Ottawa Rebel. No, that was not a typo. It’s not Ottawa Rebels. It’s not the Ottawa Rebellion. It’s “The Ottawa Rebel.” What the hell were they thinking? The team folded anyway, so it’s no longer a going concern.
I agree, though, that old traditional names get extra points. “Phillies” is fine… the name dated back to before the other leagues existed, before basketball was even INVENTED. The traditional names like “Phillies,” “Dodgers,” “White Sox,” etc. etc. have the advantage of tradition that idiot names like “Raptors” and “Devil Rays” do not.
How about extinct names? Atlanta Crackers. Nothing like upside down Southern pride.
<offtopic> How about the Doherty High School Highlanders?
I was a track star there for the past four years and I had to explain to many an opponent that we were named after the STREET THE SCHOOL WAS ON! <offtopic>
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The Mighty Ducks are not the first hockey team to have that name; in the 60s, the Long Island Ducks played in the EHL.
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If you think it’s bad to name a team after a movie, remember that the Brooklyn Tip Tops of the Federal League were named for a loaf of bread.
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Why does a name have to be intimidating, anyway?
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The problem with the Toronto Raptors is that they don’t even have the right animal as their logo. :rolleyes:
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The Buffalo Bills may be the only team whose logo has nothing to do with their nickname. (It’s a Buffalo, not a Bill).
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Thank goodness no one’s tried to mention the Nippon Ham Fighters in Japanese baseball. There’s nothing odd about the nickname, since it’s the Nippon Ham Fighters, not the Nippon Ham Fighters, as many think.
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The Tennesse Titans are not the first pro football team to use that nickname.
Don’t forget the World Team Tennis franchise from back in the 70s: The New York Sets
I don’t think the Indians are as offensive than the Redskins. First, the Indians were named in honor of a highly esteemed early team member who was in fact an Indian. Second, Indians is to Redskins as Blacks is to Darkies. (I was going to say “Niggers” instead of “Darkies”, but the n-word seems to be in whole different league of offensiveness compared to “redskin”.)
I’m pretty sure the inspiration for “Clippers” was the small boats, called clippers, which ran people into California so they could cash in on the Gold Rush. Gold Rush-era clipper-running was probably a profitable business, and assuming you did not live in California (and often even if you did), clippers were a lot faster than the alternative: swimming, walking, or using some kind of non-motorized land vehicle. Profitable and faster than the competition. Good values for a professional basketball team to have, no? I don’t have a lot of beef with the idea of naming a basketball team the Clippers.
Note that this particular team fits the name well in certain aspects: its owner cares a lot about money and not much about basketball, and spends a lot of time on expensive boats (I think Gold Rush-era clipper owners were probably like-minded in these aspects).
That, and they haven’t been interesting for a long, long time.
As far as bad names go: the WUSA, whose San Diego team (the Spirit, for Christ’s sake) I had season tickets to, was a study in vomit-inducing team names. The eight teams in the short-lived professional women’s soccer league were dubbed the San Diego Spirit, the San Jose Cyber Rays, the Boston Breakers (this supposedly had something to do with the ocean), Atlanta Beat, New York Power, Carolina Courage, Washington Freedom and Philadelphia Charge.
What about the Houston Texans? I couldn’t believe this one when I first heard it. Was there a good reason they couldn’t go back to the Oilers?
I’m generally against the names that don’t end in s as well, though there are exceptions. I think the Chicago Fire is quite clever, and the Colorado Avavlanche has some relevance too.
From Sydney ARL, the now defunct Newtown’s nickname was the “Bluebags”; while South Sydney are the “Rabbitos” (i.e. rabbit sellers).
This cracked my shit up.
The Montreal Expos is a pretty lame name. The team is named after a world’s fair that is pretty much forgotten now.
This was a soccer team? Then they stole it from the USFL. I remember that quite distinctly. They had blue wave patterns on their helmets. http://www.thisistheusfl.com/membosbreakers.htm