Team nicknames / origins

[TalktoChuck]

The Denver Zephyrs minor league team retained its name when it moved to New Orleans, but it was a great fit there. Here's a piece of the roller coaster from the old Pontchartrain Beach amusement park:

If memory serves, wasn't there a "Zephyrs group" in Denver that was really pushing for Denver's new MLB expansion team to be called the Zephyrs?

"Denver Zephyrs" would've sounded really cool. We could use a Z-team. From A's to Z's.

There might have been a Zephyr group, but I only know of the group that advocated for the name Bears. There were a lot of people that wanted a return of the Denver Bears name.

A little more on topic, the Denver Zephyrs were named after the train.

[BigMac12]

I thought the "Texas Rangers" were named after the marshalls from the Lone Star State...

[Gothamite]

Of course they were.

As was the New York hockey club, after a punning fashion. They were owned by a man named Tex, so "Tex's Rangers" made perfect sense for a newsman to print.

[Jer15]

Ducks - Well, the origin comes from the Disney movie, so whatever.

Southern California = film industry = fitting name?

Not to mention that Disneyland is in Anaheim and that the Stadium is close to some offices for ABC.

Thinking about it, the Ducks name kind of fits in with the name of the city of Anaheim as well. I highly doubt the team thought about this themselves and it's probably a complete coincidence, but here's what I've got:

I'm fully aware that "Ana" is derived from "Santa Ana" (while "heim" is German for "home"), but it also looks like a shortened form of Anatidae, the family of birds that ducks belong to. Therefore, "Anaheim" can also be interpreted as "home of ducks", essentially making the city a real-life Duckburg.

I'M A GENIUS.

Wow! That's impressive.

I'd like to see a sign at Anaheim city limits that say "Welcome to Anaheim: home of ducks". lol.

[B-Rich]

The word "buccaneer" is the anglicised (sp?) form of the French word "boucanier", itself from the root word "bouca", which was something used to smoke meat way back in the day. Anyway, buccaneers were privateers, mostly French, often authorized to attack Spanish convoys. It's thought that they were the most ruthless types of pirates, since oftentimes they would also spring unauthorized attacks, as well. Anyway, that's how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came upon their name.

I've always remembered that the selection of "Buccaneers" for Tampa Bay mentioned a tie-in to such pirates who sailed the seas of West Florida, particularly Jose Gaspar, commonly referred to as "Gasparilla". Heck, Tampa even has a big Mardi-Gras like festival in his honor. However, as Paul Harvey might have said, you may not know THE REST OF THE STORY...

Gaspar was famed as the "last of the Buccaneers," and raided the west coast of Florida during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early in the 20th century, folks in Tampa got the idea of having a New Orleans Mardi-Gras-like festival associated with him. City leaders formed "Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla", and started the "Gasparilla Pirate Festival" which has grown into a pretty big event-- over 400,000 regularly attend the event, and it has been estimated that it contributes over $20 million to the local economy.

There's one problem though-- the whole tale of Jose Gaspar/Gasparilla is probably bogus. No evidence of his existence appears in writing before the early 20th century. His story mainly came from one old man named Juan Gomez. According to legend, when faced with capture,

"rather than surrender, Gaspar chained the anchor around his waist and leapt from the bow, shouting "Gasparilla dies by his own hand, not the enemy's!" Most of the remaining pirates were killed or captured and subsequently hanged, but a few escaped, one of them being Juan Gómez, who would tell the tale to subsequent generations..." Juan Gómez, or John Gómez, lived in Southwest Florida in the late 19th and very early 20th century and was well known locally for his tall tales of his supposed life as a pirate, and was said to have been the oldest man in the US at the time he died (though this is very unlikely). Gómez is widely speculated to have been the foremost contributor to the development of the Gasparilla legend, although no pre-20th century account of him specifically associate his piratical exploits with José Gaspar, whose story, real or fictitious, does not appear in writing until about 1900, when it was included in an advertising brochure for the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railroad company.(excerpt from Wikipedia)

Never let the truth get in the way of a great story-- or a great NFL nickname.

[Stampman]

Oilers - heart of oil-producing Alberta. Fits.

Flames - generic. Awesome logo, though.

The Flames were named after the burning of Atlanta during the Civil War, kept the name after relocation. The Rangers hockey teams was around almost 50 years before the baseball team.

The Flames name stayed as it was better than other ones suggested and there was a fan contest as well.

Calgary is as much, or more the heart of oil producing Alberta, and if you have ever seen the oil industry at work--you'd see flames as well--so he Flames name also fits the Oil industry.

Two CFL teams:

Hamilton Tiger-Cats: Initially known simply as the Hamilton Foot Ball Club when it was formed in 1869. Their original colours were Orange and Black. Three years later in 1872 their team colours had earned them the nickname Tigers. When World War II broke out, the Tigers had to suspend operations for the duration of the war. A Hamilton based military team was formed to take their place, but the Tigers refused to allow the new team to use the name and colours (which at this time was now yellow (gold) and black), so the new team decided to keep the feline motif and called themselves the Wildcats, but wearing white and red. After the war ended, the Tigers resumed operation while the Wildcats continued to play. Since the market was too small to support two teams a merger was done, combining the name of both teams creating the Tiger-Cats and adding the colour white, representing the Wildcats.

Toronto Argonauts: Club formed by the Argonaut Rowing Club of Toronto which of course was named after the Argonauts of Jason and the Argonauts of Greek lore.

Sticking with Alberta--The Calgary Stampeders relevance is obvious, given the annual event known as the Calgary Stampede, and the areas history of ranching.

The Edmonton Eskimos name came from a Calgary sportswriter as a reference to Edmonton being the Northern most team, and the name eventually stuck, and was made official.

[Evil Doctor]

Oilers - heart of oil-producing Alberta. Fits.

Flames - generic. Awesome logo, though.

The Flames were named after the burning of Atlanta during the Civil War, kept the name after relocation. The Rangers hockey teams was around almost 50 years before the baseball team.

The Flames name stayed as it was better than other ones suggested and there was a fan contest as well.

Calgary is as much, or more the heart of oil producing Alberta, and if you have ever seen the oil industry at work--you'd see flames as well--so he Flames name also fits the Oil industry.

And by a lucky coincidence, shortly after the Flames move to Calgary, the city won the rights to host the 1988 Winter Olympics, so it can represent it's heritage of being an Olympic host city...

[DnBronc]

North Carolina Tar Heels: Named after the North Carolina regimen in the Civil War. Don't know how they got a goat mascot, though. They should have a soldier for a mascot.

Kansas City Royals: Named after the American Royal Livestock Show.

Cincinnati Reds: Used to be named Red Stockings and Red Legs.

Oakland A's: When the team was in Philly in the late 19th century, people from various athletic clubs in the city came together to form a team called the Athletics. The name stayed with them.

[Chicageaux]

North Carolina Tar Heels: Named after the North Carolina regimen in the Civil War. Don't know how they got a goat mascot, though. They should have a soldier for a mascot.

It's not a goat, it's a ram.

"Jack the battering ram Merritt led the 1922 Carolina football team to a strong 9-1 record and thus became UNCs hero of the time. Rameses premiered in 1924 in response to the Wolf at N.C. State University and the University of Georgias Bulldog."