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March 10[edit]

Sports team names[edit]

After poking around some articles for Major League Soccer clubs here in the US, I see that there are a few of them without team names that come from animals, groups of people, historical figures, etc. That is to say, I'm used to names like the White Sox, Chargers, and Bruins. MLS has such teams as Sporting Kansas City and Chivas USA. I'm not that into sports but I have heard references to football clubs in different parts of the world. And when I hear of them, they don't have names of animals and so forth. So, is this habit of naming sports teams after these things mostly an American thing? I see that there are names for Japanese baseball teams though. So how common is this naming thing in either direction? Dismas|^(talk) 10:41, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In Europe for example, the clubs themselves usually have more matter-of-fact, less colorful names officially: "FC ____", "____ Athletic" etc. Animals and other creatures exist as nicknames, see List of mainland European football club nicknames and List of football club nicknames in the United Kingdom (and List of association football club nicknames in the Americas). Not all of the nicknames are used equally often, in my view. In the European Football League you will find Lions and Devils and even Broncos, because here the "Football" is actually American Football.

Ice hockey is an interesting example where I live. It's been a popular sport for a long time, and its clubs have been using the same type of matter-of-fact names mentioned above (HC Davos, SC Bern). During the past 15 years, three top teams in my neighbourhood added the words "Lions", "Lakers", and "Flyers" (all in English) to their "boring" names. In the case of the Lions, the reason was that the successful boringly-named ZSC was forced to merge with the non-notable colorfully-named "GCK Lions" which itself only got its English name after a merger in 2000. Anyway, I'm sure these renamings were marketing decisions taking into account how popular American super-sports in general (particularly NBA, but also NHL) have become here, while 20 years ago nobody knew a lot about it and you couldn't watch it anywhere either.

As you gave exceptions, so will I: Two successful counterexamples, again from my neighbourhood, who have been carrying their English names for a very long time are the Grasshoppers and the Young Boys, though here too, the prosaic Swiss usually call them "GC" (rhyming with WC, which can spur the imagination of not so prosaic GC-haters) and "IB" (almost sounding like eBay). ---Sluzzelin talk 10:55, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a point of order, a "chiva" is an animal, so that's not a great example of one without an animal for a mascot. It means "goat" in Spanish. --Jayron32 11:07, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is, though, derived from it's parent club which doesn't include any animals in it's official name, Club Deportivo Guadalajara. For some reason they called it "Chivas USA" instead of "CD Guadalajara USA". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholasprado (talk • contribs) 18:24, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Although I don't think Chivas USA uses a goat anywhere in its imagery. Older team names in North America traditionally referred to thinks like the color of their uniforms or the name of a sports club (Cincinnati Reds and Montreal Canadiens are two examples). The animal or other mascot-centered names are a more recent phenomenon; even the Detroit Tigers derived their name from their striped stockings, and the Pittsburgh Pirates because they "pirated" a couple of prominent players away from another team back in the 1880s. The choice of nicknames based on mascots is a more recent phenomenon, becoming common starting in the 1960s or so. --Xuxl (talk) 11:59, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You mean, like the Chicago Cubs which got their name in 1906, or Boston Bruins in 1924 or the St. Louis Cardinals in 1900, or the Chicago Bears in 1922, or the Philadelphia Eagles in 1931 (which had been named the Yellow Jackets, also a mascot animal, previously) or any of the hundreds of Collegiate athletics teams which used animal mascots as their team names... --Jayron32 12:15, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I should have been more clear - I meant pre-World War I. I believe the Cardinals got their name because of their uniform color (bright red) and the Cubs' name was just another play on Orphans, both names being derived by sportswriters from the fact their long-time captain, Cap Anson, had left them (i.e. they were like a den of bear cubs stranded without their mother); it took a while longer for the name become official and the cuddly bear image to be associated with the team. I expect a team called the yellow jackets also got the name because they wore yellow uniforms. I won't comment on college team names, the question was about professional teams. --Xuxl (talk) 12:51, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, if you had said before WWI rather than before the 1960s, I'd have had no reason to correct you with the above. That's a big difference in time frames. --Jayron32 13:01, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I always supposed that the Cardinals were named for the state bird of ... er, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginiae ambo and North Carolina, but not Missouri. Well, half of St Louis's region is in Illinois. —Tamfang (talk) 11:12, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's an article called History of baseball team nicknames, which goes into probably more detail than you ever wanted to know about how the MLB teams got their nicknames. Executive summary: The "original 16" primarily got their nicknames from sportswriters. As baseball began to become a big-money enterprise, the teams became more and more conscious of the marketing value of their identities, and began selecting their own official nicknames. This is why some teams in the NFL and even the NHL named themselves in reference to their cities' then-more high profile baseball teams. And this is where trouble begins: The Cleveland Indians (semi-directly) and the Boston Redskins (directly) were named in reference to the Boston Braves. At that time, it was easy to get away with naming teams after American Indians, as they had no political clout. Now they do, or at least they have advocates, so an anomaly like "Redskins" becames more and more controversial. Naming yourself after an animal or a force of nature or a generic historical figure is a lot safer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:54, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the first part of your reply (before "trouble begins :-): In the local newly-anglicized examples I gave above too, the media have certainly helped popularize their new names, as expected by marketing, though many die-hard "Z" fans still refuse to call the Lions "Lions". Returning to the land of the Cambridge Rules: Rangers and Rovers do seem to be quite popular, for example. Are there others of this kind and so common in Great Britain and Ireland? ---Sluzzelin talk 13:25, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean names such as Albion (note Albion Rovers which makes use of two epithets), Athletic, Wanderers, United? --TammyMoet (talk) 13:34, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wanderers, yes, thanks! Athletic and United, no. I understood Dismas to specifically mean plurals ("animals, groups of people, historical figures, etc"). ---Sluzzelin talk 13:40, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mean to suggest I was only thinking of plurals. Sorry. There's also the Chicago Fire. They could have gone with Chicago FC or something but they went with a thing, in this case. Dismas|^(talk) 14:09, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Then one might add Dynamo, Spartak, Eintracht, and many more. Though by being so common and generic they certainly don't have the cleverness and specificity and character of Chicago Fire. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:17, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sports teams are sometimes copycats. A lot of American soccer teams tack "FC" to their names, imitating the British and others, even though the term "football club" in America would typically be assumed to be American (or Canadian) football. Chicago Fire is also imitative, as there was a WFL team called the Chicago Fire (renamed the Chicago Winds in the second, and last, WFL season). MLB has both the Reds and the Red Sox, both of which derived from "Red Stockings". My favorite was the CFL, which for a number of years had one team called the "Rough Riders" and another called the "Roughriders". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:23, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of Australian soccer teams are sticking FC on their names these days too, along with the other copycat practice of adding "United", even if there was never more than one entity in the club's history. HiLo48 (talk) 10:06, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not only an American thing. In SANZAR there are a quite a few teams named after animals. See Super_Rugby#Current_franchises. 196.214.78.114 (talk) 14:20, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And also very much an Australian thing. I have for years been completely confused by the proliferation of animal names used by various national sporting teams here (let alone the squillions of local clubs with a national profile). Thank God we have Australian national sports team nicknames. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See also Association football club names. Nanonic (talk) 20:34, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all! I see now that this isn't necessarily an American thing. Dismas|^(talk) 08:56, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Even I, by no means a sports supporter (never mind Rugby League) find names like Bradford Bulls and Leeds Rhinos all wrong - these new names seem to have been adopted in the 90's, around the time that the Super League was being set up. --ColinFine (talk) 12:15, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You'd prefer maybe the Bradford Pears? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:29, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ID'ing Unknown Music Video[edit]

I seen a music video on I think Rapture TV many years ago. From what I can remember, the music video shows scientist using genetic engineering (& cloning I think) to create the main character in the video. It shows different points of the main characters life from before being born, childhood all the way to adulthood. Until at the end of the music video the main character meets & falls in love with someone. From what I can remember, there are two different versions of the video, one were the character is a guy (& the person he falls in love with is the girl from the second version) & the second version were character is a woman (& the person she falls in love with is the guy from the first version). Anyone know the name of the music video, song, etc. 194.74.238.6 (talk) 16:05, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Like a Rolling Stone[edit]

I could have sworn that Kenny Aronoff played drums on John Mellencamp's version of "like a rolling stone" at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary concert, but do not see his name on the "personnel" list! Am I mistaken?

Secondly, who were the 2 female singers who did a verse each on that same song with John. One was a tall, white, blonde, and the other was a shorter, black lady in a tan-colored pant-suit?

Many thanks,

Bob Carter — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.83.193.29 (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Having found the video on YouTube and watched it, it does look like Kenny Aronoff is the guy on drums. I believe the black singer is Pat Peterson, who doesn't have a Wikipedia article but appeared as one of The Raelettes in the 1980s and 1990s, and sang with Mellencamp on the The Lonesome Jubilee. You can see her (and Aronoff) prominently on the "Paper in Fire" video playing Banjo and singing, see This official Video. The rest of Mellencamp's band appears to be playing with him during that Bob Dylan concert as well. The white singer looks to be Canadian singer Sue Medley. --Jayron32 01:21, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]