What's in a Name?

Hi sports fans, Garry "Golden Boy" Walker here to talk about names, team names in particular. In my time as a world class Dreadball striker I have seen many a team name. Some good, others great and a fair few ugly. After some careful consideration, my feeling is that they fall into 5 main groups:

• Witty Puns
• Favourites
• Generic Fierce Animals
• Tedious links
• Everything Else

Lets look at each one and some nice examples.

Witty Puns
These are some of my favourites and if pulled off well can be great. Subtlety is the key, a few word changes here and there and if you add in a common-ish theme they produce great names for team that people will remember. Some of my favourites are Ctrl Alt Kill, Manrattan Project and Mahatma Pacifists. Can you guess what type of team each of these is? Mighty Dorks are another good example but we cant always say they are the best on this program can we? [Yes we can!! - ed] One distinctly shady team name I've seen is 'Anusol Avengers' I don't know what the image is that these guys want to show, but I want no part of it! [tee hee - ed]

Favourites
These are any that try to recreate the coaches favourite sports team, TV characters etc. With a bit of theme, good painting and modelling you can create wonders. This can tie in well with witty puns, like the SCHI Cargo Spares and E.V.A Packers - I love them! Brings back fond memories of the sports of old. Well, the sports I've seen on the Holo-Vids anyway. There is a trap you can fall into though if your not careful though, and that's carbon copying. Its just a bit lazy in my eyes, put a spin on it - it goes along way!

Generic Fierce Animals
Pretty much sums it up but they have got to be fierce otherwise they are just an animal. Like the ill fated Titan Sparrows... poor beggars...

Tedious links
Some can be great like last Season's winners, the Tuscan Swordfish, or the Not So Pocket Monsters but these names are generally a little more tricky to get right and require quite a bit of creativity. It also helps if you have a good theme and back story to get the record straight - the trick is to use the right amount of poetic license to tie all the components together. Be warned that these team names can sometimes sound awful until the credit drops and then its amaze-balls time.

Everything Else
Go wild make your own stuff up. If you make the link so thin that no one will every get it apart from you, then maybe the joke will be missed - but hey, its your team and you'll name it what you want!

Just some pitfalls to avoid:

• Don't copy - Its plain lazy and rude
• Don't call the team the "Red Giants" when they're green [Especially because the Green Giants would be an amazing Zee team name! - ed]
• Spell it right
• Don't take them too seriously

That's all folks. I've got to go, I have a photo shoot with Tuscan Swordfish star, and slippery striker Danny Grease. As ever, feel free to share your comments and opinions with me below.