NBA Nicknames (Southeast)

Among the many interesting topics in the NBA – and in professional sports – are the meanings behind team nicknames. Bill Simmons noted in a recent article that the Utah Jazz have a meaningless nickname. The Jazz originated in New Orleans, a jazz destination, but the state of Utah isn’t exactly known for producing that type of music.
That got me intrigued about the reasoning behind every other NBA team nickname. I will go through the teams by division, beginning with the Eastern Conference’s Southeast division.

Atlanta Hawks

They formed in the National Basketball League (NBL) in 1946 as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, representing the towns Moline and Rock Island, Ill. and Davenport, Iowa.
The nickname Blackhawk honored the Sauk Chief Black Hawk, whose tribe had been situated in Rock Island, among many other areas of the upper Midwest in the early 19th century. Chief Black Hawk battled for years with the U.S. government and was partially responsible for a war under his namesake that resulted in his capture.
The Tri-Cities Blackhawks joined the Basketball Assocation of America (BAA). The NBL and BAA merged into the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The Blackhawks moved to Milwaukee in 1951 and shortened their name to the Hawks. The team then relocated to St. Louis and finally Atlanta in 1968.

Charlotte Bobcats

The Bobcats obviously replaced the departed Hornets as the NBA’s Charlotte franchise in 2004.
The Charlotte Regional Sports Commission (SRSC) helped team owner Robert L. “Bob” Johnson in designating a team nickname. Flight, Dragons and Bobcats were the top three suggestions voted by the Charlotte community in the naming contest.
Another professional sports team in the Charlotte area, the NFL’s Panthers, has a cat-related name, so the CRSC and Johnson thought that Bobcats would make sense. It helps that the bobcat is an indigenous predator to the Carolinas. And since Johnson was often referred to as Bob, the nickname seemed to make perfect sense.

Miami Heat

Anyone who has been to Miami can attest to the aptness of this nickname.
The Heat became the first NBA team in Florida as they debuted in 1988. They were terrible at first, so they weren’t exactly heating up the building with winning basketball, but they eventually got there during the Glen Rice Era.

Orlando Magic

Orlando debuted a year later than their neighbor to the south, Miami. The Magic played their first game in 1989, as part of a four-team late ‘80s NBA expansion.
The Orlando organization and Orlando Sentinel held a community-wide competition to select the expansion team’s nickname, much the same way it was done in Charlotte for the Bobcats.
The final two nicknames for the Orlando team were the Magic and Juice. Juice referred to the immense Florida orange juice industry. Magic was in reference to the Orlando-based Disney World, a world-famous amusement park which opened in 1971. Disney World’s first theme park was called Magic Kingdom. Now it all comes together.

Washington Wizards

This franchise was originally the Chicago Packers, which began in the NBA in 1961. The team nickname was changed the following year to the Zephyrs. A year after that, the franchise moved to Baltimore and became the Bullets.
They held the Bullets nickname until the 1995, when owner Abe Pollin thought Bullets was too harsh of a word for a team. Critics exclaimed it promoted violence, although Pollin, like any other business owner who wants to expand his or her market reach, was probably more concerned about bringing in families to his games.
Parents typically don’t want their children to be exposed to terms such as Bullets, so Pollin instituted a name change. The recommended new nicknames from fans included the Dragons, Express, Stallions, Sea Dogs and Wizards.
A wizard, despite being a type of rank in the Ku Klux Klan, is largely associated within the children’s fantasy genre, hence the inherent appeal of the nickname to families. So the Bullets became the Wizards and it is now apparent it will take a Wizard (the magical kind) to put the team back into NBA title contention.

Information from team’s official Web sites and wikipedia.com