Alternative names for the Utah Jazz

You may be wondering, “Why is the NBA team located in Salt Lake City called the Utah Jazz?”

The reason is that they kept the team name from when the franchise relocated from their first home in New Orleans. “New Orleans Jazz” makes a whole lot more sense, but at this point, the team’s been in Utah for over 40 years. The Utah Jazz is an iconic brand. They would never change their name.

But what if they had to? I made a list of a few names that I think would be good for an NBA team in Utah. Not joke names like the Utah Mormons or Salt Lake Sister Wives, but a real list that I spent upwards of four minutes on.

1. The Utah Saints

   a. Of course, the Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is based in Salt Lake City, so that’s an easy one.

2. The Utah Bees or Honeybees

   a. Back in 1849, the Mormons claimed a large swath of the western United States, parts of Utah, Arizona, southern and eastern California, Oregon, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and New Mexico, and called it the State of Deseret. Deseret is the word for a honeybee in the Book of Mormon.

   b. The Deseret News is one of the major newspapers in Utah, sort of the state newspaper of the Mormon church. A Rodong Sinmun for the most beautiful state in our fair nation, so to speak.

   c. There was also a minor league baseball team in Salt Lake called the Salt Lake City Bees. Cities love bringing back old minor league baseball or rugby team names from long ago like, for example, the New Orleans Pelicans.

3. The Utah Arches.

   a. Arches National Park is in Utah. This one is going along the same lines as naming a team the Denver Nuggets or Minneapolis Lakers— just naming the team after an environmental feature of the area.

   b. If the Colorado Rockies baseball team weren’t so close to Utah, I’d go with the Rockies. I’m ok with borrowing the “Saints” moniker since New Orleans is almost 2000 miles away from Salt Lake, but Utah and Colorado border each other.

Or, how about this— they lean into the absurdness of their existing name and call the team the Utah Funk.