20 sports teams with the weirdest names

The Cleveland Browns helmet logo is shown on the side of the Cleveland Browns Training Facility.

Other American professional teams

Major League Baseball is pretty big in the United States with many popular teams based in big cities like New York, San Francisco and Boston. But some of the team names are absolutely ridiculous. We start with the Chicago White Sox. Yes, it’s the word ‘socks’ modified. Founded in Chicago in 1900, they were originally known as the ‘White Stockings’.

And not to be outdone, Boston named their baseball team the Boston Red Sox. The name was chosen as early as 1908. But why the ‘Red Sox’? Because the Boston teams before them were known as the ‘Red Stockings’! Even the team’s logo features a pair of red socks. No disrespect to their history (yes, I see you Yankees fans laughing), but they could have chosen a much better name.

Moving on to American football, we first go to Houston, Texas with, well, the Houston Texans. This too was picked after they eliminated names like ‘Bobcats’, ‘Stallions’, ‘Toros’, and ‘Apollos’ (Stallions rejected again?). Houston Texans? It looks more like an address with a typo than the name of a professional football team. What do they write on envelopes? To, Houston Texans, Houston, Texas?

Another team in the NFL with a facepalm inducing name is the Cleveland Browns. And this team was named after, wait for it, their coach Paul Brown. Brown had initially rejected the idea in the first place (probably the sanest person at the franchise) and they’d gone with ‘Panthers’ before a legal issue caused them to revert to Browns. It’s not every day that you’re the namesake of a professional team (No, people! Arsenal FC in England was not named after Arsene Wenger!)

But the Washington Redskins take the cake when it comes to the most ridiculous NFL team name. For those who are not aware, the term ‘Redskin’ is a racial term used to describe the indigenous Native Americans (a.k.a. American Indians). It is an offensive and insulting term and is normally never used in a civilised conversation. What’s even more ironic is that it was a team that initially declined to integrate black players into the squad and did not do so until the federal government stepped in.