If you are a hard-core sports fan or a casual fan, if you’re a professional athlete or a student-athlete…hey, if you’re a human, you’ve probably come across a funny or epic sports team name. Or two. Or three.
Well, in this case, got you covered with…25!
You’re welcome, Intramural sports captains who need to come up with a team name for your floor hockey, volleyball, pickleball, basketball, flag football, any sport’s team. I got you.
There are no rules in this article here. We’re gonna go from pro team names to college institution mascots to some good ole’ team names of generic team names listed on Sports Feel Good Stories’ Mike O’Halloran‘s ‘Funny Team Names’.
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Also, a quick note: some of the funniest mascot names you’ll see just so happen to be minor league baseball teams. You may have one in your hometown, you may have heard of one or two. The minor league teams are listed here on MiLB’s site, where most of the names were found.
Are you ready?
I thought so.
Get your mascots ready, get your new jerseys ready (or go cop a jersey from the already established team’s site), and let’s have some fun.
Ladies and gentlemen, the:
25 Funniest Sport Team Names That Are Epic
25 – Binghampton Rumble Ponies
Have no fear, the Rumble Ponies are here. To dominate! This is no My Little Pony, this is the minor leagues. So, time to pony up! The team is the New York Mets’ AA-affiliate (per the team’s site).
24 – Columbia Fireflies
The Kansas City Royals’ Low-A affiliate (per the team’s site), might as well have Owl City’s ‘Fireflies’ song in rotation on game night. Cue the song!
23 – Tampa Bay Rowdies
It’s about time to get…rowdy for some USL Championship football!!! No, not American football. Football as it’s known around the world pretty much everywhere but the US (where we know it as soccer).
22 – Southwestern Moundbuilders
As you can see from the SC Moundbuilders tweet, they’re also simply known as the “Builders”. An epic name. If you build it, they will come. And Southwestern was built (founded) in 1885 per the school’s site. They have come since then. And here’s a cool bit of history related to the school’s nickname, a unique tradition true to building a solid foundation as a Christian college:
According to Southwestern College’s Kasey (Dumler) Griffith ’01, here’s the history of “The Mound and the Ceremony Behind It”
“I propose the inauguration of a new college custom, absolutely unique among all the colleges of the world. This ceremony is to be known as ‘The Building of the Mound.’ Nobody but Mound-builders can build mounds. So no other college has now, or is ever likely to have such a custom. It is highly appropriate to Moundbuilders, but would have little meaning to others. There is a decided advantage, I think, in having at least one custom that is absolutely distinctive of this institution. So many of our customs are copied, not only by us, but by a thousand other colleges. Such customs, being mere imitations, come to have little significance. But I challenge any one to point to a college that has anything like what is proposed in the building of the Mound.”
“Dean Leroy Allen spoke those words at the first regular assembly of the year on September 8, 1927″ according to (Dumler) Griffith
21 – South Dakota Mines Hardrockers
According to the university’s site, “(t)he Dakota School of Mines was founded in 1885”. Another epic name. You don’t need to go to play hard rock or go to Hard Rock Cafe, you can simply be a student or student-athlete at a school that literally who’s literally named after miners. Rock on.
20 – Southern Arkansas Muleriders
I know, I know, you need to know why they’re called the “Muleriders”. Here you go:
“Shortly after Thanksgiving in 1912, young men from the football team of the Third District Agricultural School (TDAS) rode mules to Coach George Ruford Turrentine’s home north of the campus at Magnolia, Arkansas. In that year’s final game, they had played a scoreless tie game with Fordyce High School at TDAS on ‘Turkey Day,’ November 28, and they wanted to talk over the season with the coach….A few days after the Fordyce game, Coach Turrentine invited the players to dinner at his home, also located on the road to McNeil. As the riders dismounted in his yard, Turrentine walked onto his porch and shouted a greeting, ‘My Mule Riders!’ This was the first known occasion when the name Muleriders was used for the football team. Over time, it became more than the team’s name. Among all the nation’s institutions of higher education, the name has been uniquely associated with the school established in 1909.”
Southern Arkansas University: “‘History of the Mulerider Name and Mascot’…Text excerpted from James F. Willis, Southern Arkansas University: The Mulerider School’s Centennial History, 1909-2009 (2009), pp. 13-17.”
19 – Lansing Lugnuts
If you need a spare tire or…lugnut, look no further than a minor league baseball game.
Detroit, stand up! One of the Tigers’ minor league teams, you can catch a Lugnuts game in Michigan’s capital city. Fitting for a state known for its automotive industry!
18 – Southeastern Oklahoma State Savage Storm
Savage! Not just any storm but a “savage” storm. A phrase known amongst millennials is an actual team name. And we’re here for it.
17 – Daytona Tortugas
Hey, they gotta’ be on this list if not just for the jerseys! And, on the team site they have some epic promotion nights listed including “Bob Ross Night 4.0…Paint-Your-Own Bobblehead First 1,000 Fans”.
The Tortuga’s are the Cleveland Indians’ Low-A affiliate (according to the team’s site).
16 – Dumbledore’s Army
Because why not add a Harry Potter reference in here. And why not include the good guys from the series. If you’re on this team, whether this is your intramural quidditch team or a hoops squad, you’re bound to have that Gryffindor-type-swag. Thanks to Sports Feel Good Stories’ Mike O’Halloran who mentioned this one.
15 – Fayettville Woodpeckers
Don’t mess with a woodpecker.
According to Audubon’s Chelsea Harvey per a “study…in Science China: Technological Sciences, shows that the key to the woodpecker’s survival lies in how it converts the energy it absorbs. When a woodpecker strikes a tree, the impact energy—energy that is released during a collision—is converted to strain energy in the body. Too much strain in the head can be catastrophic, but the woodpecker’s incredible anatomy—including a specialized beak and skull—redirects most of the strain into the rest of the body, instead of the head. In fact, 99.7 percent of the strain energy is converted in the woodpecker’s body, and only 0.3 percent is converted in the head. This small amount of strain is quickly dissipated from the head in the form of heat.”
Look at how God made these little woodpeckers in such an intricate way they could strike them trees with such aggression that it won’t really even affect their brain health.
14 – Recess Hall-of-Famers
Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock.com
One of my favorite shows growing up was ‘Recess’. One of my favorite times during the school day was at recess. So, when I saw this on O’Halloran’s list, I had to throw this on here. You know who made the school’s recess unofficial Hall of Fame from your recesses.
13 – Montgomery Biscuits
Get ’em fresh from the oven and maybe some natural honey or some fresh jelly to spread on top…Oh, wait. We’re not talking actual biscuits. But a minor league baseball team. And you can find the team in Montgomery, Alabama.
Per the team’s site, they’re the Tampa Bay Rays’ AA-affiliate. And, man, shout out to these minor league baseball promo nights! Their latest: “Montgomery Kimchi & Korean Heritage Night”! Let’s go! Way to represent Asian American Pacific Islanders!
12 – Victorious Secret
Thomas Pajot / Shutterstock.com
Not to get confused with the brand I like to surprise my wife with because, you know, marriage. This team name is a classic play on words and heard across intramural sports teams probably all over the land. Shout out to Sports Feel Good Stories for the reminder of this name.
11 – Toledo Mud Hens
The Detroit Tigers’ AAA team, the Mud Hens mean business.
According to Ohio History Central, “(t)he team adopted Mud Hens as its name in 1896, because the team played its games at Bay View Park. A nearby swamp was home to a large number of mud hens.”
10- Fort Wayne Mad Ants
Don’t be mad, ants. In this case, they are. Shout out to a literal pest solutions company (Insight Pest Solutions), who compiled bug mascot names across the country as a reminder about this team. The Fort Wayne, Indiana team used to be the Pistons’ (formerly) D-League team. And as you can see from a recent Mad Ants’ Instagram post, one of the best players in the game now, Olympic gold medalist, and NBA Finals champion Khris Middleton used to suit up with the Mad Ants.
9 – Delaware Blue Coats
According to Delaware Online’s Kevin Tresolini, “(t)he revised Blue Coats moniker is to recognize the 1st Delaware Regiment soldiers who were instrumental in the American Revolution and distinguished by their blue garb. They were referred to as the Delaware Blues.”
A nod to the American Revolution throwing it back to our nation’s history in fighting for the nation’s freedom? Yup, that’s epic.
And even you could possibly be a Blue Coat!
8 – Florence Y’alls
Say no more. This has to be a team in the south. (Checks city location on team’s site). Y’all, the team is in Kentucky! And they’re branding is on point and modern.
NBC Sports’ Craig Calcaterra explains how the team got to this name, including mentioning the above tweet thread from the team.
7 – Rocket City Trash Pandas
I mean, usually you don’t want your team associated with the term ‘trash’. At all. In this case, it works if you’re a Trash Panda.
Per MiLB.com’s Benjamin Hill, “(a) Trash Panda is a slang term for a raccoon, recently popularized in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. In that film, a raccoon character named Rocket is referred to as a ‘Trash Panda.’ The team’s ‘Rocket City’ moniker references the longstanding nickname for Huntsville, Alabama, which is located just to the northeast of Madison.”
6 – Hartford Yard Goats
Maybe this just has to be the GOAT of team names. The team would have a case for it because they’re literally called the ‘Goats’. The ‘Yard Goats’, that is.
According to a Garry Brown piece on Mass Live, “(w)hen ownership moved the Double-A franchise from New Britain in 2015, its ‘name the team’ contest drew 6,000 entries. It came down to five finalists – and Yard Goats prevailed, mainly because the team’s new stadium was built on the site of an old railroad yard.Yard Goat is railroading slang for a small locomotive that switches cars from one train to another.”
5 – Legs Miserable
Hilarious for the sole fact that this play-on-words is, of course, reflecting Les Misérables, the classic musical. Nobody has ‘miserable’ legs as everyone is gifted in their own way, this is just a funny play on words and hopefully this team can win the ‘ship in their league. This was another team name O’Halloran mentioned.
4 – Akron RubberDucks
Imagine LeBron winning one for his city’s hometown minor league team, screaming out, “Akron, this is for you!”.
In case you were wondering, the RubberDucks are the Cleveland Indians’ AA-affiliate (per the team’s site).
3 – Savannah Bananas
Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve entered the banana boat (what up LeBron, Carmelo, and crew) of the list. Yes, the bananas. And this team does baseball…fun (as ESPN recently highlighted their journey).
2 – UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs
This has to be up here. I remember as a kid reading a list of funny team names and remember seeing this. It stuck with me because it was just so unique, so funny, yet you don’t want to mess with…the Banana Slugs. In 2017-18, the D III school’s men’s basketball team went 17-8 in the season (per the team’s site).
1 – Traverse City Beach Bums
Yes! I covered this team when I worked in northern Michigan. I went to games growing up because my grandma lives in TC. This is not just the funniest team name but arguably one of the best team names of all time. And what put them over the top on this list was their mascots: Sun Tan and Sun Burn. One bear was brown the other was red. Yes!
Hope you enjoyed this article! Let me know what your favorite is in the comments. Have yourself a great, epic day! And remember to enjoy it, have fun, and laugh a little!
Contents
- 1 25 Funniest Sport Team Names That Are Epic
- 2 25 – Binghampton Rumble Ponies
- 3 24 – Columbia Fireflies
- 4 23 – Tampa Bay Rowdies
- 5 22 – Southwestern Moundbuilders
- 6 21 – South Dakota Mines Hardrockers
- 7 20 – Southern Arkansas Muleriders
- 8 19 – Lansing Lugnuts
- 9 18 – Southeastern Oklahoma State Savage Storm
- 10 17 – Daytona Tortugas
- 11 16 – Dumbledore’s Army
- 12 15 – Fayettville Woodpeckers
- 13 14 – Recess Hall-of-Famers
- 14 13 – Montgomery Biscuits
- 15 12 – Victorious Secret
- 16 11 – Toledo Mud Hens
- 17 10- Fort Wayne Mad Ants
- 18 9 – Delaware Blue Coats
- 19 8 – Florence Y’alls
- 20 7 – Rocket City Trash Pandas
- 21 6 – Hartford Yard Goats
- 22 5 – Legs Miserable
- 23 4 – Akron RubberDucks
- 24 3 – Savannah Bananas
- 25 2 – UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs
- 26 1 – Traverse City Beach Bums
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