Origins of Sports Team Names: Preserving Folklore and History

This month, we’ve been exploring the origins of various names; streets, places, and even pubs. Looking at the origins of sports team names might seem antithetical to folklore. Yet sport forms part of the ritual calendar for many people, whether on a personal or a mass scale. Look at the good luck rituals people follow before they watch their team play. Or how about the sporting events that become part of the folk tradition of a place through their regularity?

Bearing this in mind, it seemed useful to look at the origins of sports team names. That includes both their official name, and any nicknames they’ve accrued. Much like pub names, some team names refer to the history of the area (eg. Arsenal). Others refer to the specific history of the team (e.g. Sheffield Wednesday). Some are generic, designed to sound powerful or intimidating (e.g. Whitley Bay Warriors). And others are just plain bizarre.

As I’m in the UK, and football is the national game, the focus rests on football teams. Yet we will take a detour into ice hockey and baseball. So let’s explore the origins of some sports team names…

Unusual Football Team Names

I’ve divided this into two sections because there’s a difference between a team’s nickname and their official name. Many football teams (soccer, to American readers) are named after their location, with a word like ‘City’, ‘United’, or ‘Town’ after them. Clearly, some teams like to buck the trend, like Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, and Everton. Those teams called ‘Wanderers’ took the name due to their lack of a permanent home ground (Fifield n.d.).

But then there are some football teams that choose different appellations that tell us a little something about them. For example, Crewe Alexandra FC, currently in League Two, grew out of a local cricket club with the same name. But where does the ‘Alexandra’ come from? It turns out they’re named after Princess Alexandra, Edward VII’s wife (Hancock 2024). Interestingly, Crewe Alexandra is nicknamed ‘The Railwaymen’ due to the town’s involvement with the development of the railway (Paul n.d.).

Tottenham Hotspurs, or Spurs for short, take their name from 14th-century knight, Sir Henry Percy, otherwise known as Harry Hotspur. A group of schoolboys founded Hotspur Cricket Club in 1880 because they played on Northumberland Park in north London. The park, in turn, was named for Harry Hotspur since he was Duke of Northumberland. As the cricket season only lasted for the summer, the boys founded Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in 1882 to give them something to do in the winter (Fifield n.d.). Hotspur, born in 1364, fell at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.

Perhaps my favourite unusual name is Sheffield Wednesday, a football club that grew out of Wednesday Cricket Club in 1867. The name dates to the era when some businesses closed on Wednesday afternoons. Six local tradesmen thus had Wednesday afternoons off, so they became the founding members of the Wednesday Cricket Club in 1820 (Hancock 2024).

Of course, we’re not just sticking to English football teams.

The Kashima Antlers are a Japanese team in the top Japanese league. They were originally founded in 1947 as Sumitomo Metal Industries Factory Football Club. Reformed and renamed in 1992, the club decided on their new name since Kashima (where they’re based) is ‘Deer Island’ in English (Hancock 2024).

Ethiopian Coffee S.C are in the Ethiopian Premier League. Some theories suggest they took their name from Ethiopia’s most famous export (Hancock 2024). Others note that the founding members in 1976 worked at Kefa Coffee Processing. Either way, it’s a good reminder of the legends that see coffee first discovered in Ethiopia.

Finally, we talked in the place names article about Santa Claus, Indiana. But it seems the jolly festive guy gets about because he also gives his name to FC Santa Claus in Finland. Tom Hancock points out that the legend cites Rovaniemi as Santa’s hometown, which helps explain the name of the football team (Hancock 2024).

Football Team Nicknames

Some team nicknames are relatively self-explanatory. West Ham are the Hammers due to the two crossed hammers on their club badge, while Arsenal are the Gunners since the team was originally created by munitions workers in Woolwich. Their original name was Dial Square FC, referring to the square at the Woolwich Arsenal where they worked, but over time, the name became Arsenal when they moved to Highbury (Fifield n.d.).

After Newcastle United’s historic cup win on 16 March, I couldn’t not include them (well, historic for them). As you might imagine, Newcastle United are referred to as the Magpies because of the black-and-white striped kit, adopted in 1894. No, it’s not a very exciting story, but Liverpool are called ‘the Reds’ for their kit.

Sunderland AFC is a little more unusual, with their nickname being the Black Cats. Their official website explains this is because there are black cats on the badge, which as explanations go is a little unhelpful. Yet Paul at What’s Behind the Badge is much more informative (n.d.).

He notes a very long link between Sunderland and black cats dating to 1805, when the men manning a gun battery on the Wear renamed the gun the Black Cat after hearing a wailing black cat nearby. In 1905, a black cat popped up sitting on a football beside the chairman. Next, in 1908, a black cat appeared in a team photo. In 1937, 12-year-old Billy Morris took a black cat to the Wembley Cup final, and Sunderland won 3-1. So the black cats on the badge preserve this wonderful slice of city folklore!

Non-Soccer Teams

While I was looking for team names, other sports naturally stood out. Some team names have thankfully been changed due to their use of racist stereotypes, like the original name of the Washington Commanders. Other team names refer to animals, like the Bears, Falcons, or Eagles. The Nashville Predators in the NHL took their name from a sabre-toothed tiger discovered in 1971 during an excavation (Bliss 2016). Yet more refer to traditional jobs in the area, like the Steelers, Packers, or Oilers.

And some refer to folklore!

Ice Hockey

The New Jersey Devils play in the NHL, based in Newark, New Jersey. Originally based in Kansas City, Missouri, they moved to Denver in 1976, and then New Jersey in 1982, where they took their current name. Yes, it is a reference to the Jersey Devil!

I’ve never really covered the Jersey Devil before, but this cryptid apparently lives in the Pine Barrens forests in South Jersey. Descriptions vary, though wings, a pointed tail, and fast movement tend to be common points.

In one version of the legend, a woman called Mother Leeds gave birth to her 13th child in 1735. During the birth, she cried out, “Let the child be the devil”, and the baby took her literally. It sprouted claws, a tail, and wings, and flew away immediately after birth, seemingly going on to terrorise livestock. Originally named the Leeds Devil, the Jersey Devil name stuck in the 20th century. Sightings crop up, including one by Napoleon’s elder brother in 1820 (Schlosser 1997 – 2008).

Elsewhere, Seattle Kraken, who only joined the NHL in 2021, took their name from local folklore about a kraken in the area. Their maritime history really played into their name choice here (Kaplan 2020).

Baseball

Three other names stood out from minor league baseball. The Albuquerque Isotopes play in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They take their name from The Simpsons, whose baseball team is the Springfield Isotopes. In one episode, they wanted to move to Albuquerque, and a few years later, when Albuquerque got a baseball team, the name choice seemed obvious (Wray 2015). While this entry doesn’t appear to have much to do with folklore, I did enjoy its connection to popular culture. Given The Simpsons often seem to predict things, perhaps they both predicted and enacted this name choice.

Meanwhile, other names act more like the pub names from last week. These names tie the team to the fabric of their hometown, either through its history or something it produces, much like Sheffield United being nicknamed “the Blades” thanks to the city’s history of cutlery production. The Akron RubberDucks in Ohio take their name from the city’s association with the rubber industry (Wray 2015). Companies like Firestone, BF Goodrich and Goodyear all first opened their doors in Akron. It began with BF Goodrich when Benjamin Franklin Goodrich secured loans to move his rubber business from New York state to Akron in 1870. While rubber duck manufacturers switched to PVC in the 1940s (Lucky Duck 2024), they’re still so synonymous with rubber that it makes sense to use them in the team name.

The Binghamton Rumble Ponies take their name from Binghamton’s apparent status as the “Carousel Capital of the World” (Hill 2017). The city, in New York state, boasts six of the remaining 150 wood-carved carousels in the US and Canada. Shoe manufacturer George F. Johnson donated them to the city’s parks between 1919 and 1934 (City of Binghamton, NY, n.d). Even more surprising, Johnson insisted the carousels be available to everyone for free. They operate between Memorial Day and Labour Day for free. So while this minor league baseball team was originally called the Mets, I much prefer the Rumble Ponies!

What strange sports team names are in your city?

I would love to hear if you’re a fan of, or know of, any teams with unusual names. It would be interesting to see what names appear and what folklore has become attached to them!

Feel free to leave a comment below if you’ve got any interesting, cool, or weird sports team names in your neck of the woods.

References

Bliss, Jessica (2016), ‘Origin of Nashville Predators name dates back to saber-tooth unearthed in the 70s’, The Tennessean, https://eu.tennessean.com/story/news/2016/11/06/exclusive-saber-tooth-bones-named-preds-get-new-home-bridgestone-arena/92829882/. Accessed 17 March 2025.

City of Binghamton, NY (no date), ‘City Carousels’, City of Binghamton, NY, https://www.binghamton-ny.gov/government/departments/parks-recreation/city-carousels. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Fifield, Dominic (no date), ‘The surprising origins of football club names’, BBC Radio 4: Word of Mouth, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4nyVyHG27VVfh4CrgBpy2yP/the-surprising-origins-of-football-club-names. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Hancock, Tim (2024), ‘Football clubs with unusual names’, Four Four Two, https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/football-clubs-with-unusual-names. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Hill, Benjamin (2017), ‘Minors have long tradition of wacky names’, MILB.com, https://www.milb.com/rocket-city/news/leo-de-vries-ethan-salas-impress-in-padres-spring-breakout-game. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Kaplan, Emily (2020), ‘How Seattle’s NHL team became the Kraken’, ESPN, https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29520108/how-seattle-nhl-team-became-kraken. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Lucky Duck (2024), ‘The Early History Of The Rubber Duck’, The Rubber Duck Museum, https://therubberduckmuseum.com/blog/the-early-history-of-the-rubber-duck. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Paul (no date), ‘Crewe Alexandra’, What’s Behind the Badge, https://whatsbehindthebadge.com/index.php/crewe-alexandra/. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Paul (no date), ‘Sunderland AFC’, What’s Behind the Badge, https://whatsbehindthebadge.com/index.php/sunderland-a-f-c/. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Schlosser, S. E. (1997 – 2008), ‘Joseph Bonaparte and the Jersey Devil’, American Folklore, https://web.archive.org/web/20100202013405/http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/nj6.html. Accessed 17 March 2025.

Wray, Cheryl (2015), ‘The Weirdest (Best!) Minor League Baseball Team Names’, Al.Com, https://www.al.com/sports/2015/03/the_weirdest_minor_league_base.html. Accessed 17 March 2025.