The Art of Football Nicknames Trivia Quiz

The Detroit Lions are an American football team that competes in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The team was originally founded in Portsmouth, Ohio, as the Portsmouth Spartans in 1928. They joined the NFL in 1930 but relocated to Detroit in 1934. They were renamed the Lions to complement Detroit's Major League Baseball franchise, the Detroit Tigers. In 2024, when they were the top-seeded NFC team for the playoffs but lost in week 2 to the Kansas City Chiefs, they were the only NFC team operational throughout the entire Super Bowl era to not appear in the Super Bowl. In 2023, they reached the NFC Championship game but lost to the Giants. Before that, they won four NFL Championship Games between 1935 and 1957.

The British & Irish Lions is a test rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They tour the southern hemisphere rugby countries, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, on rotation every four years. They have a winning record against Australia but not South Africa, and the All Blacks (New Zealand).

In the Australian Football League, the Brisbane Lions were formed in 1996 when the 1987 expansion club Brisbane Bears merged with Melbourne AFL club Fitzroy Lions to become the Brisbane Lions. They play in Brisbane but still have a strong ex-Fitzroy supporter base in Melbourne. They are one of the most successful AFL clubs of the first quarter of the 21st century, with six grand final appearances, winning four in 2001-2003 and 2024.

Honourable mentions:
Millwall FC, an English association football team based in London that reached the FA Cup final in 2004
Penn State Nittany Lions, A US college football team that plays in the Big Ten League. The "Nittany" name references Mount Nittany, which overlooks the university.

Hint explained: Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The Carolina Panthers are an American football team that plays in the NFC South. They were a 1995 expansion team that is based in Charlotte, NC, but represents both North and South Carolina. Initially owned by Jerry Richardson, they chose Panthers as their nickname as it "symbolized a powerful, sleek, and strong team".They reached Super Bowl XXXVIII in the 2003 season, losing narrowly 32-29 to the New England Patriots. They reached the Super Bowl again in 2015, losing to the Denver Broncos 24-10.

Penrith is a city 50 km west of Sydney. The Penrith Panthers are an Australian rugby league team that plays in the National Rugby League competition (NRL). They joined the top-tier competition in NSW in 1967 and earned their nickname after a public competition. After limited initial success, they won their first premiership in 1991, repeated in 2003 and were the first NRL team to win four premierships in a row, 2021-2024. Perhaps no other team has had so many team colours. Forced to change from their traditional blue and white when they joined the top tier, they chose a predominantly brown strip and were dubbed the "Chocolate soldiers". In 1991, they changed the colours to black with white, red, yellow and green stripes (and became known as the Liquorice Allsorts). Many variations followed, but their fans chose a variant of their 1991 jersey as a permanent strip. Their 'away' jersey is pink. When they wear this strip, they are known as the Pink Panthers.

Honourable mentions:
NCAA - Pittsburgh, Florida International University, Georgia State.
The South Adelaide Panthers are an Australian rules football club in Adelaide, playing in the South Australian National Football League.

Hint explained: A panther is black due to its excess melanin in its skin. A non-black panther is a leopard.

Richmond Tigers are one of the oldest Australian Rules Football Clubs. They formed in 1885 and joined the Victoria Football Association. They joined the Victorian Football League in 1908 (The VFL became the Australian Football League [the national competition] in 1990). They became the Tigers around 1908-1910 due in part because of their black and yellow guernsey, which was originally striped, but this evolved into a black guernsey with a diagonal yellow sash. When Richmond won the AFL Premiership in 2020, it was their 13th.

The West Tigers are a merged rugby league club in Sydney, Australia. Two foundation clubs in the 1908 NSW Rugby League Competition, the Balmain Tigers and the Western Suburbs Magpies, merged in 1999 to form the Wests Tigers and play in the newly formed National Rugby League
competition. The merged club won their maiden premiership in 2005.

Hull City Association Football Club is an association football club based in Kingston upon Hull, in Yorkshire, England. They formed in 1904 and became known as the Tigers because of their amber and black striped uniforms. They have had mixed success, having played in all four top tiers of the English league system with several bouts in the Premier League (top tier) in the 21st century. Their first stint in the top tier was in 2008. They stayed two years before being relegated again to the second tier. This pattern was repeated three times in the next 12 years. In 2014, they played their first FA Cup final, but despite two early goals, they went down to favourites Arsenal 3-2 in extra time.

Honourable mentions:
US College football teams - Clemson, LSU, Memphis, Auburn, Missouri
English Super League: Castleford Tigers Rugby League Club

Hint explained: Richard Parker is the tiger in the novel "Life of Pi".

While Tiger is arguably the most popular team nickname across all football codes, the American National Football League does not have a "Tigers-team". But it does have the Cincinnati Bengals. This was an expansion team that became the tenth and final team for the American Football League in 1968. When the AFL and NFL merged in 1970, Cincinnati played in the AFC North Division. In 2021, when they won their third AFC Championship, they played the LA Rams in the Super Bowl. Previously, they had lost two other Super Bowls to the 49ers (both times in 1981 and 1988). They were called the Bengals after another Cincinnati Bengals team played in the AFL from 1937-42. This team was named after a rare white Bengal tiger which was featured in the Cincinnati Zoo. The team's colours are orange, black and white.

Cincinnati also has another unusual nickname for one of its American football teams. The Cincinnati Bearcats football team represents the University of Cincinnati as a member of the NCAA Big 12 Conference. Their name arose from a cheer used during a football game against the Kentucky Wildcats in 1914. A UC cheerleader created the chant "They may be Wildcats, but we have a Baehr-cat on our side," This was fullback Leonard K. Baehr. The crowd responded with "Come on, Baehr-cat!" which led to the name "Bearcat" being adopted as the team nickname.

Hint explained: The Bengal Tiger is one of nine subspecies of Panthera tigris

The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is an Australian rules football club from Geelong, Victoria, which is the state's second biggest city, 80km (50 mi) southwest of the capital Melbourne. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL) and before that, the Victorian Football League. The club dates back to 1859, making it the second-oldest AFL side after the Melbourne Demons and one of the oldest football clubs in the world. In 2022, they won their tenth premiership and the fourth since 1990 when the AFL was formed.
They became known as the Cats in 1923 when Sam Wells, a cartoonist with a local newspaper, suggested Geelong adopt black cats as mascots to bring them luck for their poor form. A bright spark started selling enamel black cat badges at games. Coincidentally, they started winning games, so there was a move to officially adopt the name, but because Geelong's colours have always been navy blue and white, "black" was dropped, and they've been known as the Cats ever since.

The Kilkenny County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (Kilkenny GAA) is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland and is responsible for Gaelic games (such as Gaelic Football and Hurling) in County Kilkenny. All Kilkenny sporting sides are known as the Cats after a local legend where two Kilkenny cats fought each other so ferociously that only their tails remained at the end of the battle. Unfortunately, the Kilkenny Hurling side is the most successful hurling team in Irish sport; the corresponding Kilkenny Cats Gaelic Football team has therefore struggled to attract players, and the team no longer plays in the county championships.

Hint explained: Felis is a genus that includes the domestic cat (F.catus).

Sunderland Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Sunderland in northeast England. Formed in 1879, they have been successful, winning several titles whilst oscillating between the first and second tiers in the English league. Their biggest win was in the 1973 FA Cup final when, as a second-tier team, they beat the League champions Leeds United 1-0 in the biggest upset in English soccer for some time. Before that, they also won the FA Cup in 1937. They also won the six top-flight titles (1892, 1893, 1895, 1902, 1913, and 1936).

Their nickname was the Rokermen or the Rokerites because they played at Roker Park in Sunderland. In 1997, when the team moved to a new venue, The Stadium of Light, their nickname appeared obsolete. They adopted the Black Cats in 2000, but the reason is unclear. One theory is that Sunderland supporter, Billy Morris, allegedly took a black cat to the 1937 FA Cup final as a good luck charm and claimed it worked as his team won 1-0. Another theory is that "Black Cat Battery" was an artillery battery that defended the River Wear in Sunderland in the 18th century.

Hint explained: Black cats are often associated with witches.

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian Football League team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The club can trace its origins back to 1869 when the Hamilton Football club adopted the nickname "tigers". In 1941-47, the city had another Canadian football team, the Hamilton Wildcats, that played in the Ontario Rugby Football Union. This team filled a gap as the Hamilton Tigers, who had stopped playing in 1941, that year, due to many of its players joining the armed forces to fight in WWII. When the Hamilton Tigers began playing again after WWII, the two clubs merged in 1950 to form the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
By 1999 they had won eight Grey Cups. In 2021 they appeared in their fourth Grey Cup final in the 21st Century, but they lost all four matches.

Fun Fact: In 2022, an Australian Rules Football team, the Hamilton Wildcats, won its first title in the Canadian Australian Rules Football Ontario League.

Hint explained: "Hamilton" is the title of a popular musical.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team playing in the NFL and are based in Jacksonville, Florida. Founded at the same time as the Carolina Panthers in 1995 as an expansion team, they play in the AFC South. They adopted their nickname after a public naming competition. At the time, Jacksonville Zoo owned the oldest living jaguar in North America, and the alliterative nickname was appealling. Stingrays and Sharks were two other leading contenders. Whilst they showed early promise, making the conference playoff game in only their second season, success has been limited: When they won their fourth divisional championship in 2022, they had never won a conference championship game and were one of four NFL clubs that had never made a Super Bowl game, the others being the Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, and Houston Texans.

The Belize Jaguars is the team name for the national soccer team of Belize. Whilst they have been playing as a national team since 1928 (when they were known as British Honduras), they did not qualify for the 2026 World Cup on their eighth attempt. Their success before that has been limited, with the only bright spot being the qualification for the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Gold Cup in 2013, where they placed fourth.

Hint explained: Jaguar is a British car manufacturer that specialises in sports and luxury cars.

The wildcat is a very popular nickname for a football club, especially in the American college system, but ironically, the two species of wildcat are not native to North America: The European wildcat (Felis silvestris) inhabits forests in Europe, Turkiye and the Caucasus isthmus. The African wildcat (F. lybica) inhabits semi-arid landscapes and steppes in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

The US colleges with wildcat nicknames are many, but arguably the most prominent are the University of Arizona (labelled), the University of Kentucky, Northwestern and the University of Kansas.

The Arizona Wildcats' nickname arose from a 1914 football game with California champions Occidental College. The "Los Angeles Times" reported that Arizona "showed the fight of wildcats". They have a strong athletic and bitter rivalry with Arizona State University Sun Devils, the state's only two Division I-FBS teams, in which the two play each other every year in the Big 12 Conference for the Territorial Cup. They won the Fiesta Bowl in 1994, the Holiday Bowl in 1998, the Las Vegas Bowl in 2008 and the Alamo Bowl in 2023.

The Kentucky Wildcats represent the University of Kentucky (UK), a founding member of the Southeastern Conference and play out of Louisville, Kentucky. When they won the Citrus Bowl in 2021, it was their 11th Bowl win. They won the SEC conference championships in 1950 and 1976.

The Northwestern Wildcats represent Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and play in the Big 10 Conference. They can trace their history back to 1876. This team had won 16 Bowl games when they were Big Ten West Champions and Citrus Bowl game champions in 2020. They had ten Bowl appearances in ten seasons between 2008 and 2020, winning three consecutive bowl games in 2016-18.

The Kansas State Wildcats (also known as "Kansas State", "K-State", or "KSU") represent Kansas State University, located in Manhattan, Kansas. The team had a dismal record until Coach Bill Snyder was hired in 1989. In 1998, they had a number one national ranking, and they won Big 12 Conference championships in 2003 and 2012. Between the years of 1993 and 2003, the Kansas State Wildcats earned eleven straight bowl games.

No explanation necessary for this question's hint.

The Argentina national rugby union team, officially the Argentine Rugby Union (Spanish: Unión Argentina de Rugby - UAR), represent Argentina in Rugby Union matches. They have always been the highest-ranked team in the Americas and often defeat many of the Six Nations (European international rugby teams).

They are nicknamed Los Pumas; they play in sky blue and white jerseys, as do the Argentine national soccer team, a nod to the country's flag colours. The adoption of the puma as the nickname was the result of a mistake. In 1941, the crest on the Argentine Jersey was depicted as a lion. It was later changed to a Jaguar, which is native to Argentina. This animal was chosen because it was "agile and courageous". On a tour of South Africa in 1965, a local reporter was trying to devise a suitable name for the Argentine team (to match, for example, the All-Blacks, Wallabies, etc). This reporter mistook the jaguar on the jersey crest for a puma, and the name stuck! Los Pumas was eventually adopted by the UAR itself (although the UAR crest still depicted a jaguar until 2023).

Hint explained: Puma SE is a multinational corporation that manufactures athletic and casual footwear.