OK, OK, "Miami Fusion" was a horrible name that only a Nike marketer could love, but it's still pretty tame compared to some of the names of J League teams. Can someone please explain the origin of names like "Nagoya Grampus Eight" or "Kyoto Purple Sanga", to name but two? I know Nagoya and Kyoto are the city names but where'd they get those team names?
J League team tries to express their attributes of the city by using meaningful names. "Purples" obiouly stands for the team color. In kotyo is the most cultural/religous city. Therefore, they used a Sanskrit term "sanga" (to show the realatioship between the ancient religion) which means "foe". "Grampus" is obiously means killer whales, which is the symbol of Nagaoya City. Eight is also something to do with Nagoya City but I forgot.
Short answer: This site will tell you the origin of each club's name: http://www.wldcup.com/Asia/jleague/teams.html Long answer: Back in the dark ages, before 1993, the highest level of Japanese soccer was semi-pro, with corporations like Nissan and Panasonic fighting each other for supremacy (this is the model that almost every Japanese sport operates on) in the old JSL. These teams basically started like your comapny's softball team, but as the popularity of the sport grew, companies recruited players, who would be employees of the corporation by day and athletes by night (remind you of a certain country's university system?). In the early 90s, the sport had grown enough to go pro. Now, they wanted to differentiate themselves from baseball, and baseball teams are usually known by the names of their parent companies (i.e. Seibu Lions, Yomiuri Giants, Nippon Ham Fighters, etc) - well, J-League decided that these teams would be separate entities from their corporate benefactors and would set roots in the community. That's great, but what do they call themselves? So they went to the good folks at Dentsu Advertising and Sony (I think that's right - Jonathan Burchill's "Ultra Nippon" talks about this in more detail), who came up with the name, logo and mascot for every club. Thus, Nissan became Yokohama Marinos, Panasonic (or Matsushita, as they're known in Japan) became Gamba Osaka, Yamaha became Jubilo Iwata and Yomiuri (media conglomerate) became Verdy Kawasaki, etc. Now, some people still associate teams with their old parent companies, mainly because many of them are still the primary sponsors of the clubs. Naogya still play with "TOYOTA" written across their chest, Urawa Red Diamonds advertise whatever hot car Mitsubishi (which means in Japanese "three diamonds") is pushing and FC Tokyo are often known as "Gas", as it was formerly Tokyo Gas.
Normally, I would make some sarcastic comment, but seeing as I'm a fellow Chicago Fire fan, I bid you welcome to the Asian forums. I think the above people have fielded pretty good explinations about the root of the team names, which I will say do sometimes sound funny, when you don't know the background behind them, or still do in such cases as Shimzu S-Pulse. (ass-pulse as I call them).
Thank you, skipshady! I was being serious. For example, what is a "Verdy"? Why are Kashima called "the Antlers"? And I don't think much sarcasm is called for considering that it seems as if the Japanese themselves can't even explain some of their team names. Consider this nugget from the website skipshady so kindly linked to: "The official team name is "Nagoya Grampus Eight", and a variety of reasons have been given over the years for the word eight. Originally, some suggested that it referred to the eight arms of an octopus, but Nagoya adopted a killer whale as its mascot, so this explanation makes little sense. The official company website states that it refers to the eight priciples of citizenship in Nagoya City, but it is unlikely that any fan can tell you what those principles are. In general, the public and the press have come to refer to the team as simply "Nagoya Grampus"." So even if "grampus" means "killer whale" in Japanese, nobody knows what the "Eight" is for. [Violent Femmes]Eight, eight, I forget what eight is for![/Violent Femmes]
But I still think, they all sound better than any MLS clubs' names. I mean "Galaxy"? That is a horrible name. I don't even like the name "Revolution", but it does relate to Patriots, so it makes sence.
Re: Thank you, skipshady! Verdy? I don't have a clue. It might be a bird of some sort, who knows. Antlers is easy - the characters that form "Kashima" combine to mean "Deer Island". Male deer has antlers, ergo Kashima Antlers.
Re: Thank you, skipshady! Cool, but why not "the Bucks" instead of one part of the animal? Or is there some other team in Japan named "the Bucks"? And I agree with schuvy that MLS team names generally suck. The only MLS team names I like are the Fire and the Wizards. I blame Nike. They originally wanted the Chicago team to be named "the Rhythm". Thankfully, Peter Wilt told them to go have sexual intercourse with themselves. They spent the next four years sulking and refusing to produce much fan gear beyond the jersey and a few t-shirts.
Re: Thank you, skipshady! It is. But J-League nicknames are usually perverted forms of English, Italian, Spanish, or combination of two or more. Then you have one like San Frecce Hiroshima - it's a reference to a local legend about three arrows together being harder to break than three arrows one by one. "San" is Japanese for 3 and "Frecce" is Italian for "arrow". Makes sense, right? And deprive us of opportunities to make jokes about the "Rhythm method"? Shame.
Re: Thank you, skipshady! Suddenly, several of those J-League team names makes sense. Sort of. Arrigato! Seriously, you know those marketing people never stop to think like fans do when coming up with these dumbass names. I call it "The Ass-wee-pay Symndrome".
Being a Columbus Crew fan, I WILL make a sarcastic comment ....................................................... for the Rivalries Board . But even MLS team names, as hideous as some may think they are, have some sort of relationship to the area or state in which that team resides. The Galaxy?? Well, hey, Hollywood is in LA, and like a GALAXY, L.A is full of stars (and millions of wannabe stars!!) Chicago has made a tribute to not only a great historical FIRE, but to what I'd consider true heroes of any city, it's FIREfighters. Yeah, San Jose is chillin' out near a vital EARTHQUAKE-prone fault in the earth. And even lower division teams pay hommage:Long Island Rough Riders=Teddy Roosevelt, Charleston Battery=Charleston has been a military town since colonial times, Thunder Bay Chill= it's no tropics in that area of the Great Lakes that's for sure!! So it takes deep research to find out why teams have certain monikers and the like. If my team is going to have some "cooky" nickname I'd at least want it to have some name which sort of represents the city and/or area with pride.
Re: Thank you, skipshady! "Verdy" comes from portuguese word "VERDE," which means green. By the way where did the name "SYRACUSE SALTY DOGS " cames from?
Re: Thank you, skipshady! It's all about local history (Parma=cheese, Syracuse=Salt):From Bill Kappel Brine from springs in and around the southern end of Onondaga Lake, from former brine wells dug or drilled at the lakes' edge, and from wells that tapped halite (common salt) beds near Tully, N.Y., 15 miles south of Syracuse, were used commercially from the late 1700's through the early 1900's for salt production. The rapid development of this industry in the 18th and 19th centuries led to the nicknaming of Syracuse as "The Salt City". The brine originates from halite beds of the Salina Group shales of central New York. The dissolution of halite by ground water creates a brine that moves through an unconsolidated basal aquifer northward to the springs near Syracuse. There's also the Salt Museum
Re: Thank you, skipshady! Actually grampus is not Japanese. It is English (probably of Greek origin).
Re: Thank you, skipshady! Plus, the fans voted on the name so they have only themselves to blame. Why do J-League teams want English or Italiam words in their club names? It would be like MLS having a team called the Houston Kitsunes or the Portland Biscotti.
Hey Ratdog, I'm sorry I think you misunderstood me, I was just joking around, I was trying to get you mad or anything. I just get a little annoyed that people make fun of Japanese team names, when they couldn't tell me how their team got their mascot or name. (I'm pointing at you Miami Fusion fans! ) I think alot of Japanese will feel that having foreign words or names in their team name will sound good and cool, and thus they choose to have these names.
This is true for Japanese pop culture in general (and it's funny when pop singers use completely f---ed up English in their songs). It's annoying though, when they use an English term when there's a perfectly good Japanese word for it.
I fing it creative when they can combine parts of words (of any language) to have a "cool" nickname. It shows that they can think outside the box and that yes, there IS a world outside of Japan. In my little studies of the language, they are numerous combo words also (from what I've seen, in products).
Before I Knew any English that was my mentality. Pop songs, logos, slogan with english or foreign (non-japanese) words used sound "cool". But now I realized how hilarious these words sounds like.
I'm not angry. I'm befuddled. Well, in MLS we have Nike's marketing department to blame. They seem to love to name teams after disembodied abstract concepts and not anything tangible like and animal or plant or group associated with the place the team comes from. The cynic in me says that this is because it makes the team easier to move if the original city doesn't work out. So if Nike was still naming our teams, you'd get the Memphis Ennui or the Boise Antinomianism or the Albequerque Profits. What confuses me about J-League team names is that this rule does not seem to hold. So I see these team names that make no sense to me even from a marketing standpoint. I mean, some of them make some sense but others just strike me (as a gaijin, admittedly) as kind of goofy. Why not call them the Nagoya <insert Japanese word for 'Killer Whales' here>, for example? That would be a really cool team name. But "Grampus Eight"? Huh? I guess this makes as much sense as anything.
Isn't there a website that has pics of Japanese English-language fashion items where you see grown men walking around Tokyo in t-shirts that say (in English) incomprehensible things like "Flying Penis Outcome"? Granted, some of us over here think Japanese words look pretty cool and some enterprising Japanese could probably sell t-shirts here that say "Hello, I suck!" in Japanese and we'd all be none the wiser.
For American it might sound cool to have Japanese names for clubs (so for you), but for us and japanese, foreign words are better. By the about how I critizied the japanese naming, I still love all the names of the J. League clubs, except for Consadolle Sapporo, which name came from reverse form of "dosanko" (or thanks)