Baseball is my favorite sport. It’s my favorite sport to watch and my favorite to play. And one thing I love about baseball is some players’ names. There’s nothing like a guy whose name just sounds like he should play baseball out of the womb. Take Hank Aaron for example, HANK AARON. Just sounds like a baseball player. How bout JOHNNY BENCH. If you didn’t know who he was and I asked you, I bet you’d say, “Oh with a name like that, he sounds like he played professional baseball.” And you’d be right! But every once in a while you see a guy playing in the Majors who just does not sound like a baseball player. What their actual career should be is another question. Last night we were introduced to yet another, Worst Name in Baseball (WNIB) Nominee: Michael Foltynewicz. Ya good luck pronouncing that. Remy struggled with it and he and DO had a good laugh (What else is new). I usually don’t like including guys who have a normal first name like this, but there’s absolutely no looking past that last name of his. “Folty” literally just made his Major League debut this month, and what makes this even worse is that he got lit up by the Sox. Poor guy was giving up base hits left and right. So to my point, with a name like that, clearly he is the wrong profession.
Worst Name in Baseball Nominees:
- Michael Foltynewicz (Astros)
- Jaff Decker (Pirates)
- Tuffy Gosewich (Diamondbacks)
- Sam Fuld (Athletics)
CreativeEqual 
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, especially as it relates to other sports. With football season nearly upon us I wanted to throw out a few nominees from the NFL. Names that sound like football names (evoke images of toughness, manliness, and/or intimidation), terrible names (hard to say, lame-sounding) and just plain awesome names (not relevant to football, but if you could change your name to this, you totally would). And now my nominees:
Best Football Names
Logan Mankins (it has “man” right in it!)
Colt McCoy (seems like a TV character name. Too bad he never lived up to his name)
Terrell Suggs (just sounds like he’s gonna mess you up)
Runner up (tied): Tom Brady, Tony Romo (just good QB names), Frank Gore (gonna mess up too!), too many others to name
Worst Football Names
Blake Bortles (who wants to cheer “Bortles?”)
Cortland Finnegan (some kind of prep school jerk)
Blair Walsh (could be a girl)
Sneaky Runner-up: Richard Sherman (sounds like he should be doing your taxes)
Most Awesomest Names
Barkevious Mingo (I mean, come on!)
Ndamukong Suh (ditto)
D’Brickashaw Ferguson (on the strength of the first name alone)
Runner Up: Matt Forte (Forte!)
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I love it! Agree with all of them except maybe D’Brickashaw Ferguson because saying his first name sounds like your stuttering. Now if there was only a blog I could read this on…!
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I think the best names in each professional league can be boiled down to a handful of characteristics:
MLB: Good ‘ol American name! Nolan Ryan. Mike Schmidt. Randy Johnson.
NFL: Anything that sounds badass. Conor hit the nail on the head.
NBA: This is a tough one but I think there are two main options. Cool names are either (a) Pretty normal (Paul Pierce. Kevin Durant. John Wall) or (b) Something exotic + something familiar (LeBron James. Carmelo Anthony. Kobe Bryant).
NHL: If you play hockey there’s a good chance you have a cool name.
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