How Do You Come Up With Your Team Names?

[Johnp2 21]

Another attempt to start banter . . . :-)

In the past we always voted at our team kick-off meeting, but as you know the kids can be a bit shy at first. This past season I handed out a list of about 10 possible names of all types (plus an "insert your own") at our kick-off meeting and tasked the players to come up with their favorite for our first practice (as I will not hold practice until we have a name). :-)

We then had a "tournament of names" as I would pit two names against each other, and let the players vote on their favorite. That winner moved up to the next level, etc. We had as lot of fun doing that.

I'm curious how you all choose your team names.

[rushbuster70 16]

Simple...I choose it lol.Mostly because we have usually average 9 kids a team and all 9 kids have different names so I keep it simple "Trojans"

[Tide_Fan 0]

Good question. I've only coached 1 season, but start a new season in a couple of weeks. We'll have a 1 hour "pre-season" meeting with the kids/parents, and then the following week we have our first practice/game (practice for 1 hour before game). Needless to say, there's not a lot of time to come-up with a team name.

Last season, we let the kids come up with the name and it was pretty much like you describe (8 different names, shy kids had no input, coach decided on two and let them choose between the two). I like the idea of giving them a list to choose from and then voting on the top one. Otherwise, here in Seattle, we get Huskies, Cougars, Seahawks, Bulldogs, etc. I think 4 out of the 18 teams in our league were the Bulldogs last season.

[Coach Rob 26]

Back in the day, I used to tell the kids to come up with names and we'd vote. Ended up with umpteen diff names and the voting process took forever. Decided that I would come up with 3 names and tell the kids that our league gave us the TOP 3 names to choose from. Kids vote, majority rules. It works.

Some of our team names over the seasons (from basketball, soccer and football):

The Mighty Meerkats, Flying Burritos, Gila Monsters, Orcas, Howling Coyotes, Wild Dogs and Spitting Llamas to name a few. Currently we're the Screamin' Eagles and will probably keep that name for the upcoming spring football league.

Always grabbed a stuffed animal as a mascot, we'd bring it out when doing the good game/hand shake deal. For our Flying Burrito's mascot, we took a stuffed dragon with wings, duct taped everything down so it was shaped like a burrito and left the wings sticking out. Then wrapped it in tin foil leaving the wings exposed. That one drew a lot of comments from parents, kids and refs.

Picking a creative name at the younger levels is a great way to keep this whole deal fun. The stuffed mascots are always a big hit with the younger siblings.

CRob

[pointyfootball 0]

I'm curious how you all choose your team names.

We play NFL Flag, so we're limited to 32 names. Since I'm an Eagles fan, I figured it was one way I could finally get them a Super Bowl!

[Johnp2 21]

The cool thing about the "tournament of names" is that you control the possible names.

The kids have a few days to think about their favorite name prior to the first practice. Then, each round is not to vote on their favorite name, but instead to vote on their favorite out of the two names pitted against each other. The winner between those two moves on . . .

Last season the Final Two names were the "Raving Rabbids" vs. "The Warriors" (the latter won by two votes).

My only rule is that we cannot have a name that we've already used before (which is easy to control as I come up with the list of possible names).

My son's first team (many moons ago), the coach just told us right before the first game, "Oh yea---our team name is always the Tigers." I guess he meant to really say, "I like the name the Tigers and so every team I coach always uses that name." Nice.

[Orange 26]

We all chose the name together. We're in big time college football country and the two top names were Gators and Seminoles. Since I have both on my team and didn't want to offend anyone I decided to eliminate those two names (Gators and Seminoles usually don't get along). Someone came up with Tigers which has always been one of my favorites. I asked them if Tigers was enough or if they wanted it to be special. Someone came up with ManEating Tigers and it stuck. We've been that for 3 years now and we get lots of comments from league officials and other teams about how they've never come across a name like ours. Typically the teams we play are the aforementioned Gators, Noles or Colts, Patriots or another currently popular team.

[Johnp2 21]

I've noticed a lot of teams will go with their jersey color. i.e. "Silver lighting", "Green Goblins", etc.

I love coach Rob's idea of a "mascot". We've had unofficial mascot's (team dog), but that seems like a cool idea. We always make a big deal out of the team we are playing. We use their name all week. Example, we'll say all week we are going to "stop the Bullets", or "Tame the Lions", etc. The kids all seem to have a lot of fun with team names.

[Tide_Fan 0]

Always grabbed a stuffed animal as a mascot, we'd bring it out when doing the good game/hand shake deal. For our Flying Burrito's mascot, we took a stuffed dragon with wings, duct taped everything down so it was shaped like a burrito and left the wings sticking out. Then wrapped it in tin foil leaving the wings exposed. That one drew a lot of comments from parents, kids and refs.

Picking a creative name at the younger levels is a great way to keep this whole deal fun. The stuffed mascots are always a big hit with the younger siblings.

Great idea that I plan to steal this season! I'm sure the 6/7 year-olds will love this.