Team names for sports: 160 ideas sorted by each sport

A team name is the first thing your league table, your kit and your group chat will carry all season, so it is worth ten minutes of thought. A good one gives players something to rally behind and gives the opposition something to remember.

Below are 160 team names for sports, sorted by sport, from Sunday league football and five-a-side to basketball, netball, rugby and cricket, plus a set of all-round names that work for any club. Each list has our favourite marked. After the lists, there is a short guide to choosing a name your team will still like in March, and the stories behind some famous club nicknames. If you are naming an office quiz team or a group chat instead, our guides to team names for work and names for groups are a better fit.

All-round team names for sports

These work for almost any sport, from a works five-a-side team to a mixed-ability netball league. Animals and colours give you a ready-made badge, there are powerful and cool names for teams that want to sound intimidating, and the last row is for teams who turn up for the laughs as much as the points. Our pick: Sea Wolves, a name that suggests a badge, a kit colour and a howl for the touchline all at once. For a longer list of jokes, see our funny team names.

Football (soccer) team names

Ideal for Sunday league, five-a-side and walking football. The best ones borrow from the game itself, so everyone in the league knows at once what you play. Our pick: Top Bins, football slang for a shot into the top corner of the goal.

American football team names

For flag football, touch leagues and fantasy teams. Gridiron has a vocabulary all of its own, and these names use it. Our pick: Hail Mary Heroes, named after the long, last-gasp pass that every team dreams of completing.

Basketball team names

Court slang makes for the sharpest basketball names, while the second row is for teams with a bit of flair. Our pick: Full-Court Press, a defensive tactic that doubles as a warning to the other team.

Baseball and softball team names

Diamonds, dugouts and home runs give baseball and softball teams plenty to work with. Our pick: Good News Bears, a cheerful twist on the classic film The Bad News Bears.

Volleyball team names

Indoor or on the beach, volleyball names work best when they borrow the sport's own moves. Our pick: Block Party, which describes a good day at the net and a good night after it.

Ice hockey team names

Ice, sticks and the penalty box give hockey teams some of the best puns in sport. Our pick: Five-Hole Finders, after the gap between a goalkeeper's pads that every shooter aims for.

Rugby team names

Rucks, mauls and the sin bin: rugby names should sound like they could survive eighty minutes in the mud. Our pick: Ruck and Roll, a pun that works for union, league and touch alike.

Netball team names

Netball is full of rules and positions that make neat team names, from the centre pass to the footwork rule. Our pick: Net Gains, short, upbeat and easy for an umpire to read out.

Cricket team names

Cricket has the richest slang in sport, which is a gift when you are naming a side. Our pick: Howzat Heroes, named after the appeal every bowler shouts when they think they have a wicket.

Team names starting with A

Handy if you want to top the league table alphabetically before a ball is kicked. Our pick: All-Rounders, a compliment to every player who can do a bit of everything.

Famous sports team nicknames and where they came from

The best nicknames are rarely invented in a meeting. They grow out of a place, a kit colour or a piece of club history, which is a useful lesson for naming your own side.

• Arsenal, "The Gunners": the club was founded in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal munitions factory in Woolwich, as the club itself explains.
• West Ham United, "The Hammers" or "The Irons": the club began as Thames Ironworks FC, the works team of a shipbuilding firm.
• Manchester United, "The Red Devils": adopted in the 1960s under Sir Matt Busby, who borrowed it from the Salford rugby league side.
• New Zealand men's rugby union, "The All Blacks": most accounts link the name to their all-black kit.
• South Africa men's rugby union, "The Springboks": named after the springbok antelope.
• Australia women's netball, "The Diamonds": a name that suits a side that has won the Netball World Cup more often than any other nation.
• Juventus, "La Vecchia Signora" (the Old Lady): an ironic nickname for one of Italy's oldest clubs, founded by students in Turin in 1897.
• New York Yankees, "The Bronx Bombers": home in the Bronx and a long line of power hitters.
• Green Bay Packers, "The Pack": the Packers name itself comes from the Indian Packing Company, which paid for the first kit in 1919.
• Golden State Warriors, "The Dubs": short for the W in Warriors.

How to choose a good sports team name

Coming up with a name takes the whole squad, because it will stick with you on fixture lists, kit and group chats. These tips will help you get to a shortlist quickly.

Start with what makes your team yours

Look at where you play, your kit colour, your sport's vocabulary and your in-jokes. "Top Bins" only works for a football side and "Howzat Heroes" only for cricket, which is exactly why they feel right. Mix two words, use alliteration, or borrow a moment from your first season.

Say it out loud

If it cannot be shouted from the touchline or read out by a referee without a stumble, it is too long. One to three words is the sweet spot, and anything past four words tends to get shortened by everyone else anyway.

Match the name to the league

A name that gets a laugh in an adult five-a-side league can land badly in a junior league or on a work team sheet. Steer clear of names that mock a group of people. The American Psychological Association's 2005 resolution on American Indian mascots is a good reminder of why names and mascots built on a stereotype cause real harm, and why several professional teams have since dropped theirs.

Check nobody else owns it

Search your league's team list first, then a trade mark register if you plan to print kit, sell merchandise or run a social media account under the name. The UK's trade mark search on GOV.UK and the USPTO trademark search are both free. This is also why we avoid real professional team names in the lists above.

Think about the badge

A name that suggests a colour or an animal (Red Foxes, Sea Wolves) gives you a ready-made badge, kit and celebration.

Shortlist, then put it to a vote

Cut your ideas to three to five names, drop anything too long, too similar to a rival or too hard to spell, then let the squad decide.

Settle the vote live with AhaSlides

In our live sessions, the naming debate is often the loudest part of the warm-up. What ends it fastest is putting the shortlist on screen and letting everyone vote from their phone.

1. Vote on the shortlist: add your top names to an online poll, share the join code, and the squad votes from their phones.
2. Break a tie with a spin: load the finalists into a spinner wheel and let it decide.
3. Test the new name in a quiz: run a sports quiz with each player joining under the team's new name, and watch the live leaderboard. Our 40 sports quiz questions and answers are a ready-made first round.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good name for a sports team?

A good sports team name is short enough to shout, connected to your sport, place or kit, and free of anything that mocks a group of people. Names like "Top Bins" (football), "Full-Court Press" (basketball) or "Howzat Heroes" (cricket) work because they could only belong to one sport.

How do you come up with a sports team name?

Brainstorm with the whole squad, borrowing from your sport's vocabulary, your town, your kit colour and your in-jokes. Shortlist three to five names, check they are not already used in your league, and put them to a vote.

Can we use a professional team's name for our amateur team?

It is best not to. Professional club names and badges are usually registered trade marks, so printing them on kit or merchandise can cause problems, and your league may reject a duplicate name. Pick something original instead.