With news last week that New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson is buying the Hornets, the city can rest assured that their pro basketball franchise, a rather plucky one with a great young coach in Monty Williams that playoff teams would rather not deal with right now (ask the Grizzlies), is staying put.
Benson is wasting no time in getting the first order of business up and running: A name change. The Hornets nickname has never really fit in New Orleans, and for a city with so much cultural pride and history, it certainly does stick out like a sore thumb. The most obvious and previously used name in New Orleans, the Jazz, resides in Utah and unfortunately will probably never be making its way back down into the Gulf of Mexico, because sometimes things just make too much sense.
But all is not lost. New Orleans is renowned for its creativity and artistic skill, so really, this renaming situation simply provides an opportunity to showcase said skills. Here, based on my limited knowledge of New Orleans and a quick spin around its Wikipedia page, are 25 suggestions for the franchise’s new nickname. Some are decent, some are silly; we can take solace in the fact that if it does happen, the name will hopefully be better than any of these.
1. Musicians
2. Bourbon
3. Fisherman
4. Antiquers
5. Voodoo Experience
6. Brass Band
7. Blues
8. Creoles
9. French Quarters
10. Po’ Boys
11. Crawdads
12. Bensons
13. Boozers
14. Stevedores
15. Streetcars
16. Porters
17. Crescents
18. Bayou
19. Carnival
20. Tourists
21. Music That Was Invented Here
22. Gulfers
23. Swampers
24. Cajun Hornets
25. Beads
Being New Orleans, and all the options available to a city like that, this could end up being a superb fit and a fresh start of sorts for a franchise seemingly on the rise.
Griffin Gotta contributes to The Hoop Doctors and is a co-managing editor of Straight Outta Vancouver. The story arcs and infinite weirdness of the NBA are addictions he deals with every day. Email him at griffingotta at gmail dot com.
