The Name Game: How Your Favorite Sports Teams Were Named

Janet Money, formerly the sports editor of the Woodstock Daily
Sentinel-Review, is a freelance writer and editor in London, Ontario.

One of the more unusual accounts of the naming of a sports team is that
pertaining to the New Jersey Devils. The team was named after a baby
born in 1735, a 13th child who became known as the Jersey Devil because
of his eerie bat-, kangaroo-, and serpent-like features. In 1939, the
state made this legendary child its official demon.

For die-hard fans of just about any sport, this book may solve
arguments and win bets. It includes explanations of the names of all the
teams in professional baseball, basketball, football, and hockey, as
well as those in American colleges and Canadian universities (called
colleges by the author, although Canadian colleges are in fact not
included), and of a selection of other teams (e.g., British soccer
squads). Regrettably, it fails to address why women’s teams at
universities are sometimes given diminutive versions of the men’s
teams’ names, such as Hawkettes and Hawks (although this is happening
less frequently, it still occurs in some schools) and ignores the
controversies regarding the Washington Redskins and Atlanta Braves team
names.

Not a book for reading from cover to cover, it is nonetheless useful as
a reference tool or for casual entertainment.