Reading about the Washington Redskins, and the fight to change the name of the team, I wonder - is this something that has been done before? Did the Romans change the names of their teams ? How old is the "changing the name of the team" tradition?

by Igelkotten

Hi

I listened to this documentary in "BBC Assignment" about the fight to change the name of the American football team Washington Redskins. As I understood it, many people found the name to be insulting to native Americans and wanted the team to re-name themselves. I can certainly understand that, but that made me think - how common is this, and how old is this tradition?

Was there team names that was widely accepted in Rome or Constantinople that were changed a century later because they were deemed to be insulting, or perhaps were associated with a particular unpopular emperor perhaps?

Or, did everyone kept their team name and it was just now, in the 20th and 21st century we started to consider people's feelings?. Have there been teams called "Niggers", "Slaves", "Rednecks" "Micks" and other deregatory terms that are now called something else?

DoubleCop

In terms of recent history, I can think of at least one professional sports team that changed their name from one that was inappropriate/insensitive to one that was not. Coincidentally, that team was also from Washington, DC.

In 1995, Washington Bullets owner Abe Pollin decided that the name was insensitive in light of the high homicide rate in DC and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The name was officially changed to the Wizards in 1997.

Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/02/why_abe_pollin_went_from_bulle.html