When the Warriors left San Francisco/Daly City, they were thinking about playing home games throughout the state. The first year in Oakland, they played six games in San Diego. They gave up the idea, but the name stuck.
I assume they just chose Golden State instead of California to be different. The NBA in 1971/72 wasn’t exactly a booming operation so teams were trying a lot of different names. The ABA had a lot of unusual names:
The Floridians
Spirits of St. Louis
I think teams use more regional names for broader support. Tampa Bay is a good example. There is no city called Tampa Bay, there are a cluster of cities which include Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, etc. The Devil Rays (the baseball team) is located in St. Petersburg, it would alienate a large part of the fan base if they were called the St. Petersburg Devil Rays (trust me, they need as much of a fan base as possible).
The Texas Rangers play in Arlington, a suburb midway between Dallas and Ft. Worth.
Plus, of course, the name Texas Ranger was well known. The Dallas Rangers would sound silly.
Of course, now the Dallas Cowboys are moving to Arlington. Don’t expect to see a name change anytime soon.
The Arizona Cardinals were once the Phoenix Cardinals. However, the stadium was in Tempe. The name was changed to attempt to appeal to the rest of the state, many of whom were long time Dallas Cowboys fans. Since the new stadium will be in Glendale, it makes sense to keep the name of the state. Also, Arizona won’t be getting second teams in any sport unless the Tucson area grows rapidly over the next few decades.
In the early years, early 20’s I think when the NFL started it was mostly midwest based with many teams in the same state. Kenosha, WI had a team, GB, had one. Ohio had one in Canton, Cleveland and another city or two. Illinois had Chicago and Decatur. Naming them after a state wouldn’t have made sense.
Distance was a problem then. Today it doesn’t mean much, someone in southeastern MN can easily watch and root for the Vikings with tv, radio, etc…
Denver sports’ teams split the difference. Two (the two oldest in the state - the Broncos and Nuggets) using the city’s name and the newer teams taking the state’s name (the Avalanche and Rockies).
I think it goes back to the OP’s suggestion that someone told those setting up the new teams that in a “small market” area, one needs to appeal to the widest fan base as possible to draw in the fans (Never mind that the Denver Broncos have been sold out for over 30 years).
I think your theory is just fine, as it is also resounded in this thread. The Pack is publicly owned by the town of Green Bay, hence the Green…well, you know. 
Therefore, there is no need for more regional appeal.
I don’t have an answer to Golden State, because even when I lived in the Bay Area, we just called it that, the Bay Area. I tried calling it Golden State, but I just got looked at funny.
I’ve heard announcers on many occasions refer to the “Charlotte Panthers”.
They probably didn’t want to use “Bay Area” to avoid confusion with the Bay Area Bombers. 
New England Patriots, anyone? Not a single city, or a state, but the whole damn region!
Wrong! They did **no **such thing.
As **NDP **and others have pointed out, the Senators did **not **move to Minneapolis at all. Their home field was in Bloomington, a first-tier suburb to the south of the Twin Cites of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Bloomington was deliberately chosen because it was neutral turf. And fans from both cities could support the team without the messy complication of a long-standing inter-city rivalry.
And naming the new team the **Minnesota **Twins was also a deliberate decision, so as to allow both St. Paulites and Minneapolitans to root for the team. And, as others have said, to try to appeal to a statewide fanbase.
Incidentally, some poster called the bickering between Minneapolis and St. Paul a “pseudo-rivalry.” I guess how strong or real the rivalry is is in the eye of the beholder.
But when the Vikings and the Twins broke the “gentlemen’s agreement” to play in neutral territory in the early 1980s and moved the stadium from Bloomington to Minneapolis (in the nasty Metrodome), that pissed off a hell of a lot of people, myself included. (And I lived in Minneapolis at the time!)
As others have mentioned, the municipal rivalry between Minneapolis and St. Paul made the Minnesota teams choose the state name rather than a city name. While I know the NBA wasn’t big business back in the 50’s, I’d love to know if there was any indication that the Minneapolis Lakers lacked a fan base in St. Paul.
The Florida Marlins used the state name in the hopes that Tampa Bay residents, who had long coveted their own baseball team, would latch onto them rather than see them as a Miami team. If the Marlins had developed a strong enough fan base in central Florida, perhaps the other 1998 expansion team would not have been in Tampa Bay, and the Marlins would have the entire state as their market. Alas for the Marlins, the ploy failed.
I have no proof for this, but I suspect the Arizona Cardinals and Diamondbacks used the state name to place themselves at the top of any alphabetical team listing. Instant prominence! (The D-Backs were named before the California Angels changed their name to Anaheim Angels.)
I read a history of the Minneapolis Lakers in Sports Illustrated once and the story mentioned the Lakers having a hard time finding places to play if the arena in Minneapolis was booked. St. Paul didn’t want a “Minneapolis” team.
And the Minneapolis Lakers were a very good team.
The Packers started out owned by Curly Lambeau, and about 5 years later went bankrupt. That’s when they went ‘public’. So they were ‘Green Bay’ before they were publicly owned, and they are owned by people not in GB as well, over 100,000 people.
I think it’s just silly, especially for California/Golden State teams. No one outside of anaheim ever cared about the “Caifornia” Angels, and I suspect no one outside of the Bay Area cares about the “Golden State” Warriors.
I certainly never wanted my home associated with the Angels when I was a kid.
(And I imagine LA doesn’t, either.)
(Nor Anaheim, for that matter.)
I forgot to mention, about the Tennessee Titans - didn’t the Titans play their first season or two in Memphis before their current stadium in Nashville was completed? That would certainly justify a state-named team as something more than just a marketing gimmick.
And there aren’t any “California” pro teams left either. The Warriors likely keep “Golden State” out of tradition. However, it’s been a down 20-30 years for the Warriors.
The NHL team that played in Oakland was the Seals. They started out as the Califiornia Seals. Then quickly switched to Oakland Seals. Then they were bought by Charlie Finley and he went back to California Golden Seals. (Because you know there are a lot of gold-colored seals). Then they moved to Cleveland as the Barons. Then they got bought out by the Minnesota North Stars. Who ended up moving to Dallas. Where they dropped the North from their name.
Of course, to confuse things more, UC Berkeley’s athletic teams are called “California” or “Cal” despite the fact that that the school is not “The University of California”. It’s part of the University of California.
Four of the 10 original N.F.L. teams were in Ohio – the Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Tigers, Akron Pros, and Dayton Triangles.
Before the formation of the N.F.L., the Canton Bulldogs’ main national rival was the Massillon Tigers, another Ohio club.
eague memberships was pretty fluid at the time and other Ohio clubs in the early days of the league included the Columbus Panhandles, Cincinnati Celts, Toledo Maroons, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Bulldogs, Columbus Tigers, Akron Indians, Cincinnati Reds, and Marion Oorang Indians.
My understanding was that the plan all along was for the new major league club to adopt the name of the minor league club entirely, so that effectively the Miami Marlins would enter the National League. However, the club ownership decided to go for the all-state marketing at the last minute, royally pissing off the city leaders of Miami as well as the various groups in the Tampa area who had long been trying to get a team.
And the Red Wings, Lions, Tigers, and Pistons. Michigan is very unlikely to ever have another city besides Detroit having a team.
A few years ago, when the St. Louis Cardinals were trying to get funding for a new stadium, there was a proposal floated to build the new stadium across the river, in Illinois. The city fathers got huffy and swore they would take the Cardinals to court so they couldn’t call themselves “St. Louis Cardinals” if they weren’t actually playing in St. Louis.