Sports Teams Names

Besides all the jargon of sports, many names of teams have unusual origins, and many terms in sports come from names. Here are some team name origins for hockey, football and baseball.

In the National Hockey League, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks got their name from Disney CEO Michael Eisner who named the team after the hit Disney hockey movie The Mighty Ducks.

When Businessman Charles Adams wanted his new franchise to have brown and yellow team colors to match his stores, and a name equated with strength and power, he ran a contest and the winning fan entry was the Boston Bruins in the early days featuring a bear/bruin.

The Buffalo team management held a contest and chose Sabres as fitting since team officials wanted a name not being used in the pros and something other than a buffalo/bison variation.

When the Flames were located in Atlanta, the name referenced the burning of the city in the Civil War. When the team moved to Calgary, management held a contest and the fans chose to keep the Flames name. The flame could now be considered a reference to Alberta's petroleum industry.

In the National Football League, when George Halas moved his oddly-named Decatur Staleys to Chicago in 1921, the Staleys played at Wrigley Field, the home of baseball’s Cubs. Halas thought that if the baseball tenants were Cubs, then his more rugged gridiron combatants should be known as the Bears.

Paul Brown chose Bengals as the team name for Cincinnati’s 1968 AFL expansion team because there had been earlier football teams in the city called the Bengals. The oldest Bengals were members of an earlier AFL in 1937, then competed as an independent club in 1938, then played in a new AFL from 1939-41 before the AFL merged with the NFL.

The Buffalo Bills nickname refers to William F. Cody, who was known as “Buffalo Bill.” Buffalo had a football team called the Bisons, but the city’s minor league baseball and hockey teams also had the same name. The football team held a contest to select a new nickname following the 1946 season. More than 4,500 entries were submitted and Bills beat out Bullets, Nickels and Blue Devils.

           

In Major League Baseball, one team name example is the 1961 expansion version of the Washington Senators, who were obviously named for the U.S. Senate in Washington D.C.

When they moved to Arlington, Texas in 1972, they took on the totally-Texas nickname Texas Rangers, referencing the famous Texas Ranger Division, the law enforcement agency that was created by Stephen F. Austin in 1823.

The aptly named Colorado Rockies became a new franchise into the MLB in 1993. The nickname "Rockies" is, of course, a reference to the Rocky Mountains which cover much of the western half of Colorado. The name Colorado Rockies had actually already been used by a National Hockey League team from 1976-1982. When that team relocated, they became the New Jersey Devils.

            

Minor league teams had been known as the Miami Marlins for several decades, referencing the marlin, a popular sport fish of the state. There were the Miami Marlins of the International League (1956-1960) and the Miami club of the Florida State League starting in 1963, who was known as the Miami Marlins during 1963-1970 and then again in 1982-1988.

The MLB team began to play as an expansion team in the 1993 season as the Florida Marlins When the major leagues expanded to the Miami area in 1993, the old nickname was revived but called by the state name of Florida Marlins. The Marlins moved into their new ballpark, Marlins Park, in 2012 which coincided with a change in the team colors/uniforms and name to the Miami Marlins.

The Marlins are the only team to win a World Series in their first two winning seasons (1997 and 2003); in fact, they are the only team to even make the playoffs in their first two winning seasons. In those two seasons, they managed to make a surprise run to the World Series, both times as heavy underdogs. They are also the only team to never lose a postseason series.

Check out all our sports names posts.

More Hockey Team Name Origins

This post continues earlier ones on the origins of some hockey team names.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have several possible reasons for choosing their name. The owner at the time, Conn Smythe, may have been inspired by an old Toronto team called the East Maple Leaves.

Also, when Smythe bought the Toronto St. Patricks, he may have been honoring the Maple Leaf Regiment of the First World War. (That original team was known as the Arenas, then renamed St. Patricks, supposedly to attract an Irish following.)
Though, quite obviously, the name immediately clearly suggests the maple leaf on the Canadian flag.

The Vancouver Canucks take their name from a Canadian folk hero.

The legend says that Johnny Canuck was a great logger, and was a skater and a hockey player in his spare time. Johnny Canuck was actually a Canadian cartoon hero and superhero who was created as a political cartoon in 1869 and was later re-invented, most notably as a Second World War action hero in 1942.

The Vancouver Canucks hockey team current logo is an orca whale, but since 2008 they have also used a lumberjack rendition of Johnny Canuck as one of their team logos.


The Washington Capitals joined the National Hockey League as an expansion team for the 1974–75 season. The team was owned by Abe Pollin (also then owner of the NBA's Washington Bullets) and he had built the Capital Centre in suburban Landover, Maryland, to house both the Bullets (who formerly played in Baltimore) and the Capitals.

The Washington Capitals have a very obvious team name being that they represent Washington, D.C., the Capital of the United States.

The San Jose Sharks, as with many sports teams, held a contest to select a team name. Out of 5,000 entries, the judges picked Sharks.

That's not a bad choice considering that there are seven varieties of sharks in the nearby Pacific Ocean. There are several shark research facilities in that area and one part of Bay Area is known as The Red Triangle due to its shark population.

I didn't know this before but Tampa Bay is the lightning capital of the world. Therefore, the Tampa Bay Lightning makes perfect sense as a team name which is also associated with power, danger and speed.

Hockey Team Name Origins

As it gets more wintry in my part of the U.S., thoughts turn to hockey. Hockey team names seem to pretty straightforward in their origins.




The Ottawa Senators honors an old Ottawa Senators hockey team that won 6 Stanley Cups. Originally: as Canada's capital, the nickname for 1901 amateur team.

The Philadelphia Quakers had been that city's first NHL team briefly in 1930-31. The name reflected the heritage of the area's original settlers, but people felt that the name "Quakers" was jinxed because that original team had the second worst record in NHL history (4-36-4).

For a new team, the name choices were narrowed down to the Flyers or the Quakers. Philadelphia's first general manager, Bud Poile, once ran a pro team in Edmonton called the Flyers, so that was the pick.

The Phoenix Coyotes started as the Winnipeg Jets in the WHA. Then owner Ben Hatskin asked his pal Sonny Werblin (then owner of the National Football League's New York Jets) for permission to use the name.

The Jets' first signing was Norm Beaudin ("the Original Jet") and the teams first major signing was Bobby Hull ("The Golden Jet"). Hull's acquisition, partially financed by the rest of the WHA's teams, was widely seen as giving legitimacy to the WHA as a serious rival major league to the NHL.

The Jets were further noteworthy in hockey history for being the first North American club to seriously explore Europe as a source of hockey talent.


After moving to Phoenix for the 1996-1997 season, the team name changed to reflect an animal that is well known in the southwest region of the U.S.

The new logo depicts a Kachina-style coyote standing upright with a hockey stick. The head of the coyote features a mask drawn in the Southwestern style. The Phoenix Coyotes team colors are of a Southwestern flavor, and include forest green, brick red, sand, sienna, and purple.

 
For the Pittsburgh Penguins, the management held a contest and chose Penguins, partly because the animal is associated with the ice and cold and supposedly partly because the team is in PENnsylvania.

Quebec Nordiques - Committee named them Nordiques (then in the WHA) because they were the northernmost team in pro hockey at 52 degrees North, 72 degrees West.


The St. Louis Blues early owner, Sid Salamon, Jr., took his inspiration for the name from the famous song by W.C. Handy.