What's in a Name?

I was driving with my son to the grocery store when I heard something unexpected.  They were talking at length about the Astros name change possibility on Dallas sports radio (1310 The Ticket).  This is not an anti-Dallas post.  I enjoy living here, and I really enjoy The Ticket.

The Hardline, which is the strongest baseball show on the station, discussed their opinions on the matter.  This post is in response to one premise raised by one of the gentlemen.  His point was that Houston wasn't known for space exploration anymore, and they should go forward with the change.

So that got me to thinking about nicknames throughout sports.  Do nicknames need to reflect something unique about your city?

My answer is a resounding no.

Anyone out there think the Oklahoma City Thunder were named that because of all the bad weather they get in Oklahoma?  Anyone ever been to Pittsburgh and run into a disproportionate number of Pirates or been mauled by a Tiger in Detroit?  Are people in San Francisco all very tall?  

I realize that a few of those teams have been around for many years, but some moved from the east coast to the west coast and still didn't feel the need to change their name.  The Braves have been in three different cities with the same name.

The idea of nicknames being representative of something unique about a locale is an expansion era idea.  It is not a requirement for a team to be a local success.

The Astros name is not linked to the space race era for many of us.  It is linked to a baseball team that we have grown up rooting for.  Richard Justice put it perfectly today.  The name is linked to family memories for many.  For me, I think about my grandmother every time I hear Milo Hamilton's voice.

Names may start out being representative of something unique, but they change as time goes on.  No one really cares where the name Yankees came from or even if there are a ton of Cardinals flying around Saint Louis.  The fans of those teams care about the memories built while investing time and emotion into those teams.

My second thought is that we are still space city until further notice.  The space race helped build Houston into what it is, and that is enough for me to say that the name Astros is still relevant to what we are about.  

Oil obvioiusly played a major role as well, but I don't think that we are going to change to the Oilers for obvious reasons.

I don't believe a name change is going to happen or that it is even seriously being considered, and I know Astros fans have been beat over the head with the topic for the last couple of days.  Sorry that I wrote about this for two days in a row and perpetuated this thing further, but the Astros name is important to me, and I didn't really think much about that until I was asked to.