Washington has a history of choosing controversial names.
The Washington Wizards of the NBA were originally the Washington Bullets until 1997, when they rebranded themselves with a name that was fine but not exactly groundbreaking, either.
The Washington Commanders of the NFL were originally the Redskins, and for a time, simply the Washington Football Team before finally rebranding.
Choosing the wrong name can create enormous problems down the road, so choose wisely.
The Buffalo Bills have perhaps the most interesting NFL name. For the longest time, I was under the impression that the Bills were named after Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody. Though the Bills have occasionally used the image of Bill Cody in their team’s iconography, this is not the origin of the name, and the team does not promote any affiliation with Cody today.
The Bills were named after a previous Buffalo Bills team in the now-defunct All-American Football Conference. That Buffalo Bills team ultimately merged with the Cleveland Browns in 1950, leaving the name available for the current team.
The original AAFC Buffalo Bills team was named after a young male bison, commonly called a billy. The name was chosen in a contest run by the team, which was ultimately won by a man named Bill Keenan.
Did you follow that?
The Buffalo Bills were named by a guy named Bill, who suggested the name Bills.
Bill suggested Bills.
No one thought that this choice might have been slightly self-serving?
I think the naming of a team is a remarkable opportunity to do something surprising and utterly original. In professional sports, this is rarely done, but in college and especially in high school, teams sometimes have more fun with their names.
My local minor league team, the Hartford Yard Goats — named after the men who once worked the railyards where the stadium is now built — is a good example of this.
Historical but amusing. The stadium features a pen of baby goats, and the bleating of a goat is used throughout the game to taunt the opponents.
A few of my favorite team names include:
The Avon Old Farms Winged Beavers
Miss Porter’s School Fighting Daisies
Poca High School Poca Dots
David Henry Hickman High School Kewpies
Watersmeet Nimrods
Blooming Prairie Awesome Blossoms
Polo Community High School Polo Marcos
Teutopolis High School Wooden Shoes
The saddest team name I’m aware of is the Centralia High School Orphans.
The worst name goes to the Williamsport Area High School Millionaires. The name alone would make me want to punch their quarterback or point guard in the mouth.
Perhaps the oddest name that I know is the Richland Bombers.
Richland is home to the Hanford nuclear site, which supplied plutonium for the nuclear bomb detonated over Nagasaki. The team’s symbol is a mushroom cloud.
Presumably the same mushroom cloud that killed more than 80.000 Japanese civilians.
Student chants have included “Nuke ’em ’til they glow!” and “Proud of the cloud!”
I admittedly like surprising and original team names, but even I have my limits.
