Dumb team names that make no sense

[diamond_ace 3,112]

So for the VHL historians, there's always been a team that has stood out like a sore thumb: Avangard Havoc. Taken from the KHL team Avangard Omsk, whoever created the team did not realize Omsk was the place and Avangard was not. This resulted in them taking Omsk out and adding Havoc, resulting in "team name team name" such as Penguins Blue Jackets, rather than one of the words being a place.

However, this phenomenon is not only found in sim leagues, but also in real life. The MLS team Real Salt Lake is an example. Taken from Spanish teams such as Real Madrid, Real Zaragoza, and Real Oviedo, the term "Real" (pronounced Ray Al, not like the word "real" as in the opposite of fake) is Spanish for "Royal" and refers to the team of the monarchy in some way. This makes sense for the Spanish teams, as Spain has a history of being a monarchy. It does not make sense for Real Salt Lake, who is neither Spanish-speaking nor has any historical context with which to claim a monarchy. Salt Lake City is in Utah, which is more Mormon than monarchical. The MLS in particular tried to go a bit too far with stealing European naming conventions, but most of the time it's harmless, such as Toronto FC where FC really just means "football club" and is therefore true.

Which is a dumber team name? Can you think of any other examples of teams where the name doesn't even follow its own internal logic?

[solas 1,951]

Real Salt Lake will always be ridiculously dumb, but the additional part about Avangard just puts it over the top for me.  I knew the team was actually in Omsk but I didn’t know that was why lmao

Edited March 16, 2021 by solas

[Gustav 6,407]

Avangard. 

 

I mentioned this in Davos probably while you were writing this up, but "real" in Spanish can mean either "royal" or "real" as in "not fake". Whoever came up with the Salt Lake City team name probably directly translated Madrid's without looking into it, thought it meant "not fake", and was like "oh that's cool, let's call ourselves that so our name says we're legit."

 

Unless they thought it meant "royal" and decided to go with it anyway, in which case it would be a bit stupid. But then what about the LA/Sacramento Kings or the Kansas City Royals? Avangard is straight-up...not a place. Plus it was the franchise's second attempt at putting the team in an actual place after the first one just turned out to be a river.

[diacope 1,696]

As stupid as the Havoc sounds the Real Salt Lake doesn't even sound like a team name

[Victor 10,940]

16 hours ago, GustavMattias said:

Plus it was the franchise's second attempt at putting the team in an actual place after the first one just turned out to be a river.

The first two attempts were so bad we gave up even when the 3rd attempt took a real team and added Dynamo. 

 

But at least we know Davos is a hockey club unlike the other 15 teams.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

I could have sworn part of the reason Real Salt Lake has Real in the name is because they had some sort of agreement/partnership with Real Madrid.

 

But keeping it still is just dumb.

 

But so is calling soccer teams by European names. Need less "Miami FC, Minnesota FC, whatever". At the very least go SC for soccer club, but the best MLS team names are/were the Union, Fire, Galaxy, Crew, Revolution, Rapids, Mutiny, etc...