What do you think the Atlanta MLS franchise, which begins league play in 2017, should be called?
That's the question Terminus Legion, the team's largest supporters group, has been asking each other for the better part of a year. And now they've given themselves just over a week to achieve a consensus, at which point they will presumably start lobbying the team's ownership to go with their choice.
Bear in mind that this is not official, and also bear in mind that "Atlanta Phoenix" is a dumb name, no matter how much the city flag wants you to call the team that. Don't do it.
Below is what the debate looks like at the moment (visit the TL site HERE for a more complete run-down):
- Bantams: Small, angry chickens
- Black Harts: Team color + old English word for a stag or a deer
- Empire: Georgia is known (unofficially) as the Empire State of the South (as someone who lived in New York for a decade... LOL)
- Firebirds: A Phoenix by any other name...
- Kings: Yawn
- Locomotives: Hi, Thomas!
- Railrunners: The railroad history of Atlanta is distinctive and strong
- Resurgents: A version of Atlanta’s Latin motto “Resurgens”
- No team name
There's also the obligatory "FC or SC?" debate.
Some of these names are trying a bit too hard, while a few others aren't trying quite hard enough. And some are trying hard to appear like they're not trying very hard.
If I were to choose one from the list above, I'd probably go with "Black Harts," since a Black Hart could make for a pretty killer logo, and since "Hart" could be construed as a nod to former Atlanta mayor William B. Hartsfield, who was instrumental in turning the city into the transportation hub it is today (the Atlanta airport, which is the busiest in the world, is called Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport). There's also just the faintest whiff of Euro-ness to the name without it being an overt Euro rip-off.
And the best part? This would make for the second pro soccer team in Atlanta indirectly named after Hartsfield, since the NASL's Atlanta Silverbacks were named after the famous silverback gorilla at the Atlanta zoo. That gorilla's name? Willie B. -- in honor of mayor Hartsfield.
Bonus Suggestion: Georgia has a state possum, because Georgia.
