Numbers, animals, and prehistoric creatures: the possibilities are seemingly limitless when it comes to choosing Toronto’s WNBA team name.
During the May 23 press conference which officially announced that the city is receiving a team, team President Teresa Resch admitted that there aren’t any plans for a name or colours in place for the franchise. However, she alluded to the fact that there will be nationwide contests for submissions in the near future.
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“We are very much looking forward to sourcing information and suggestions from the Canadian public,” she said.
Since then, several social media users are taking the matter into their own hands and are already getting creative.
In true Toronto fashion, a few Reddit users want the name based off of local slang, some suggestions being the “Toronto Sweeter Tingz,” “Toronto Gyal Dem,” and “Sixers.”
Others poked fun at the lengthy delays throughout the city, wanting to name the team “Gardiner Construction Crew” or “Toronto Traffic Jams,” with the mascot being a pylon.
Animals have been the most common suggestions in multiple threads, with many Reddit users suggesting a title with an animal native to Canada, such as loons, raccoons, geese, beavers, or grey wolves. One user suggested a name with lions or orca whales as “both of which are matriarchal societies.”
Some think the team should directly match the Raptors as feminine counterparts, like the “Rapettes” or “Rapt-hers.” There are also plenty of dinosaur-related name suggestions, some being “Toronto Pterodactyls,” “Toronto Triceratops,” with a mascot named Cera (meant to sound like the name “Sarah”) and the “Toronto Asteroids,” a nod to the current dinosaurs that ruled the city before a “new hot item came crashing to the city.”
In response to the dinosaur concept, one Reddit user (u/itfeelslikethefirstt) with an opposing view reminisced on being a kid when the Raptors were officially named in 1994. The name for the franchise was chosen after a public vote and the decision making was heavily influenced by the popular movie Jurassic Park, which came out one year prior.
“I remember when it won and people hated it. ‘What do Raptors have to do with Toronto and Canada?’ was a common question. Meanwhile, us kids absolutely loved it,” they said. “So while I dig the Triceratops thing, not sure we should closely relate our women’s basketball team to the male team. Let them stand out on their own.”
Though the official naming will come at a later date, Resch says one thing is certain, that the team name will aim to represent the Great White North.
“We want to keep Canada at the forefront. We want something that really represents Canada,” she said at the press conference. “We also want to make sure that it represents women strongly, and we want to make sure it’s like, really, really, cool.”
