{"id":20693,"date":"2022-02-03T10:26:34","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T15:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/?p=20693"},"modified":"2022-02-03T10:26:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T15:26:34","slug":"whats-in-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2022\/02\/03\/whats-in-a-name\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s in a name?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>So, in all the fuss about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/washington-commanders-new-team-name\">Washington Football Team deciding to call themselves the Commanders<\/a> (not-in-Chiefs), it occurred to me to look at all the Major League team names from a generation ago and try to think about them as if they had no history and were being proposed for a team today. I picked 1967, as being the first Super Bowl year, and also being before there were a bunch of new teams with new names because wow those ABA names. There were sixty teams combined MLB, NFL\/AFL, NBA and NHL teams at that point, and 58 names because there were two Cardinals and two Giants. Both of which still make the top tier, which I\u2019ll call\r\n<p><Strong> Great name!<\/strong>\r\n<p><ul><li>Bears<\/li><li>Black Hawks<\/li><li>Broncos<\/li><li>Bruins<\/li><li>Bulls<\/li><li>Cardinals<\/li><li>Colts<\/li><li>Eagles<\/li><li>Falcons<\/li><li>Giants<\/li><li>Hawks<\/li><li>Jets<\/li><li>Lions<\/li><li>Pirates<\/li><li>Tigers<\/li><\/ul>\r\n<p>If you were looking to name a team and these teams didn\u2019t already exist, you would absolutely pick one from this list. I suppose it\u2019s possible that people could object to the Pirates or the Jets, but seriously, those are good names for teams. Animals, mostly. And it\u2019s about a quarter of the total.\r\n<p>I\u2019ve called the next tier\r\n<p><strong>We can work with this<\/strong>\r\n<p><ul><li>49ers<\/li><li>Cowboys<\/li><li>Cubs<\/li><li>Dolphins<\/li><li>Orioles<\/li><li>Rams<\/li><\/ul>\r\n<p>There may be disagreement here, but I\u2019m trying to imagine a meeting where they are presenting possible team names, and the guy says <i>animal names are great, but people love baby animals!<\/i> And everyone starts thinking about all the plush toys and nods a lot and then they settle on\u2026 The Cubs. They can work with it! But it wouldn\u2019t be a great name. Just a little bit better than the ones in the middle tier:\r\n<p><strong>Maybe go back to the marketing guys<\/strong>\r\n<p><ul><li>76ers<\/li><li>Athletics<\/li><li>Astros<\/li><li>Canadiens<\/li><li>Chargers<\/li><li>D-dgers<\/li><li>Maple Leafs<\/li><li>Patriots<\/li><li>Pistons<\/li><li>Raiders<\/li><li>Senators<\/li><li>Steelers<\/li><\/ul>\r\n<p>I mean, clearly the teams have worked with these names just fine. And I personally think the Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the all-time great team names! But again, bringing any of these names to the executive board of a brand-new team in 2012, and\u2026 I\u2019m thinking they don\u2019t go for them right away. With the exception of the D-dgers, which were an accident, they all smell like focus groups gone wrong. Although still very clearly above the second-to-last tier:\r\n\r\n<p><strong>Yeah, no<\/strong>\r\n<p><ul><li>Angels<\/li><li>Browns<\/li><li>Celtics<\/li><li>Knicks<\/li><li>Lakers<\/li><li>Mets<\/li><li>Oilers<\/li><li>Packers<\/li><li>Phillies<\/li><li>Reds<\/li><li>Red Sox<\/li><li>Red Wings<\/li><li>Royals<\/li><li>Twins<\/li><li>Warriors<\/li><li>White Sox<\/li><\/ul>\r\n<p>This is a long list, isn\u2019t it? And again, some of these teams are beloved and their names and mascots or logos turned out to be hugely successful. Generations of fans are invested in them. But really? Browns? These would be rejected instantly by any new organization. But not rejected as quickly and vehemently as\u2026\r\n\r\n<p><strong>OH MY LORD NO<\/strong>\r\n<p><ul><li>Bills<\/li><li>Bullets<\/li><li>Braves<\/li><li>Chiefs<\/li><li>Indians<\/li><li>Rangers*<\/li><li>Red----s<\/li><li>Vikings<\/li><li>Yankees<\/li><\/ul>\r\n<p>This is a group\u2014and it\u2019s a full sixth of the teams\u2014that I cannot imagine the marketing guys even bringing to the execs, and if they did I can\u2019t imagine the execs not instantly firing the them, and if the execs approved the name I can\u2019t imagine the league allowing it.\r\n<p>I did put an asterisk on one, because it is true that the Texas Rangers is <i>also<\/i> an excellent name for a team, and I could actually imagine the name going through all of the levels of approval despite it <i>also<\/I> being a terrible and offensive name that should be rejected instantly if it came up today. These are terrible names that should all have been changed already. My guess is that the Bills, Rangers, Vikings and Yankees will still be sticking to their names in fifty years (and all of the ones in the next tier up) but who knows.\r\n<p>I mean, if it were up to me, my preference would be for teams to change their names every few years like they did in the 19th century, with oddball names like the Superbas and the Perfectos and the Resolutes, or taking the name of their stars like the Naps or Kelly\u2019s Killers. I know that wouldn\u2019t work, but it would entertain me, and that\u2019s the important thing.\r\n<p><I>Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,<\/I><br>-Vardibidian.\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Which Your Humble Blogger contemplates how words have different connotations over time, and for different people, too.","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[202,206],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-item","category-rhetoric"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20693"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20698,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20693\/revisions\/20698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}