1. Dallas Cowboys

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

When the expansion NFL team in Dallas named their head coach, the headline in the next morning’s Dallas Morning News read: “Rangers Hire Tom Landry.” But after some thought, the front office decided there would be confusion with an existing minor league baseball team (the Dallas Rangers). Cowboys was actually only the third choice. The original name was actually “Steers” but Tex Schramm said you don’t want your whole football team being castrated.” Good call, Tex. My gracious, just think of the Tony Romo headlines.

2. Philadelphia Phillies

File this under the “we had no idea” department: During World War II, the Phillies held a contest for fans to pick a new name. “Blue Jays” was the official winner. Though the name was never officially changed, a cool-looking patch was on uniforms for two years and the Blue Jays experiment stopped in 1949.

3. Memphis Grizzlies

The original Vancouver Grizzlies, Canada’s first NBA team, were supposed to be called the Vancouver Mounties, but had to change names after the Royal Canadian Mountain Police objected. Sure, they object to that, but have no problem with Brendan Fraser starring in Dudley Do-Right.

4. Los Angeles Dodgers

The team moved from Brooklyn, of course, and in the 1910s, the team was named after the borough’s pedestrians who dodged the streetcars in the city.

(Wikipedia)

The name — Trolley Dodgers — was eventually shortened. Now that the team is in L.A. it refers to Brendan Fraser dodging Hollywood agents so they don’t have to hear him pitch another movie.

5. Detroit Lions

(Getty Images)

“The lion is monarch of the jungle,” a team spokesperson said when the Portsmouth Spartans became the Detroit Lions in 1934, “and we hope to be the monarch of the league.” In a way, they are, abdicating their throne every year before the playoffs.

6. Boston Celtics

The name was chosen because “Boston is full of Irishman,” according to team owner Walter Brown. But it was the other considered names that deserve highlighting: Whirlwinds, Olympians and Unicorns, among them. “And at forward, from French Lick, Indiana, give a big Unicorns cheer for Larry Bird!” That would have been great.

7. Philadelphia Eagles

Would you believe the Eagles are a product of FDR’s New Deal policies? Owner Bert Bell liked the Recovery Act, which had an eagle as its symbol, and hoped it would help his team have a new deal. And it worked, if by “new deal” he meant “never winning a Super Bowl.”

8. New York Yankees

The team was originally called the Highlanders but newspaper editors, looking for a shorter name to include in headlines, started using “Yankees” around 1905, missing the easy opportunity to go with Yankee2. The team officially adopted the name in 1913 when it moved to the Polo Grounds.

9. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

(USA TODAY Sport Images)

Team owner Arte Moreno evidently wanted to have the dumbest team name in sports …

10. Charlotte Bobcats

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

… thus stealing the thunder of the NBA’s expansion Charlotte Bobcats, whose original owner was named “Bob,” hence “Bobcats,” though no official correlation was ever made. Yeeeeeah, and Michael Jordan’s Wizards comeback was a good idea.

11. Tampa Bay Devil Rays

The Devil Rays also were keen to the idiotic nickname trend, but thankfully “devil” was dropped in 2007.

12. Cleveland Browns

(AP)

The Cleveland Browns are obviously named after a famous sportsman, but not necessarily who you think: According to Paul Brown, the man most associated with Cleveland’s name, the team was named after boxer Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber.” So what’s the real story? The “Browns” won a newspaper contest, but Paul Brown was uncomfortable with that and only agreed to the name after a brief foray with Panthers proved unsatisfactory. The idea is that Brown told the Louis story to deflect attention from himself.

13. Houston Rockets

(AP)

Speaking of the Rockets, the team originally was based in San Diego, which used the name because it was a “city in motion” and was the home to many space-age manufacturers. When the team eventually moved to Houston, the name still fit, given Houston’s association with NASA. That’s pretty fortuitous. If only there were lots of lakes in Los Angeles or anyone in Utah who ever listened to jazz.

14. Dallas Stars

Another move that worked out okay; the Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas in 1993. Given that Texas is the Lone Star state and the positive connotation with the beloved Cowboys and their helmets, it was easy to ditch “north” and stick with Stars.

15. Cincinnati Reds

(TRANSCENDENT ALGRAPHICS)

The first professional team in America started as the Red Stockings, then Red Legs, then Reds, then back to Red Legs during the Cold War scare, though the AP reported “the political significance of the word ‘Reds’ these days and its effect on the change was not discussed by management.”

16. San Diego Chargers

The famed da-da-da-da-da-DAAAA — CHARGE! cheer was allegedly created at USC, so when Chargers brass heard it, they thought it would be a fine name for a team.

17. Toronto Raptors

(HBO)

Speaking of absurd names, we take for granted “Toronto Raptors.” Jurassic Park, which introduced most of the world to the vicious dinosaur, the Velociraptor, premiered on June 11, 1993. Less than one year later, on May 16, 1994, the Toronto expansion franchise was named the Raptors. How absurd. It’s like if the NFL expanded next year and a team named itself the “Khaleesis” because everyone really, really likes Game of Thrones.

18. St. Louis Cardinals

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In 1898, the floundering St. Louis Browns were bought by a pair of brothers who changed the team’s name to the Perfectos, which is fairly awesome. But in the Perfectos first year, a writer with the St. Louis Republic, Willie McHale heard a female fan say “what a lovely shade of cardinal” in regards to the team’s socks. McHale used Cardinals in his column and the name stuck.

19. Atlanta Falcons

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

Like many teams, Atlanta was named by a public contest. The winning entry said the bird was “proud and dignified and it never drops its prey.” Nope, just playoff games.