How To Pick An Awesome Swimrun Team Name

The Swimrun duo 'The Low Tide Boyz' tackles the important questions: like how to pick a Swimrun team name.

Teammates after the Odyssey SwimRun Boston Harbor Islands race. (Photo: Mark Simmons/ Odyssey SwimRun)

Published August 10, 2020 10:34AM

In this monthly Swimrun column, Chris Douglas and Chipper Nicodemus, a swimrun team out of Northern California and hosts of the Low Tide Boyz – A Swimrun Podcast, will be answering all of your Swimrun questions. This month, the most important question: how to pick a Swimrun team name, why it’s important, and what to do once you’ve settled on a great one.

Our team name is a point of personal pride for us. We landed on the “Löw Tide Böyz” after reading a meme about gangster crabs. True story! The second we saw that fateful crab gang name, we knew that we had found a winner and the rest is history (we added the umlauts as a tip of the hat to Ötillö). We are so happy with our name, that we’ve taken it as our personal mission to help new teams pick awesome names. Why? We don’t have a great answer for that other than it’s a part of the fun of Swimrun to have a team name, and having a great team name is just so much better than having a ‘meh’ one.

In this column we will provide you with a framework on how to come up with a great team name and what to do with it once you’ve landed on one—other than signing up for a race…whenever those come back. We’ll break down the different styles of team names between Euro-style and the U.S.-style team names. We’ll also give you a name generator for deciding on something cool if you’re drawing a blank and need some inspiration. So grab your glass of wine, beer, or whatever you use to unwind, and get those creative juices flowing!

Euro-style Swimrun Team Names

Swimrun was concocted in Sweden, so Europe is a natural starting point for unearthing the origins of team names and the recurring themes that we’ve seen. European team names for the most part follow a structure like these: “Team (Insert Sponsor) (Insert Second Sponsor, if applicable)” or “Team (Insert Some Athletic Brand Name) (Insert Country or Region where you are from).” For example, one of our favorite Swedish teams (and guests on episode 9 of the podcast) are Helen and Isabella of “Team ARKSouls Addnature.” They are a top tier women’s team that finished second at last year’s Ötillö World Championship. The name isn’t flashy, but it gets the job done. ARKSouls is the race team for Ark Sports and Addnature is a sporting goods store in Sweden that sponsors them. While these types of team names are not the only style you see in Europe, we’ve found that team names like “Team Rubberducks,” “Team Poolparty,” and “Team Lost” are great but rarer to find on the start lists.

Our advice if you want to go with a classic team name, then go Euro-style. We recommend using a formula like the following: “Team (Insert favorite athletic brand) (Insert Country or Region that you want to represent).” For example, you could go with “Team Garmin Luckenbach Texas” or “Team BlueSeventy Boulder.”

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U.S.-style Swimrun Team Names

With a caveat that there’s no wrong choice when it comes to a name, the U.S.-style themes of names are to try to be super clever. Fanny Kuhn (also a reigning women’s World Champion and guest on episode 31 of the podcast) told us that one of the things that she loved about racing at Ötillö Catalina earlier this year was reading all the funny team names on the start list. That race had team names like “The Boston Wet Sox,” “FC Demolition & Towing,” “Pull My Buoy,” “Chafing Our Dreams,” and “Like Fun…Only Different.”

Swimrun Team Name Generator

We have no evidence that having a great team name has a positive (or negative) impact on performance, but it can’t hurt. There’s also s. deep intrinsic value when you can cross the finish line and have the race announcers say, “Here come The Traveling Dingleberrys!” or “Here come The Beaver Freezers!” Both are real and awesome team names from the Ötillö Catalina race.

Team names can be geographically-based, sponsor-based, food-based, age-based, marital status-based, but try to keep it PG-13. If you’re drawing a blank on what to call your team, here are some suggestions for landing on the perfect name.

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First thing to decide is whether you want the name to be pun-y/funny, or not. If you want to be more serious, we recommend going down the Euro route and choosing something that helps people know what you’re about. Something like “Team Soaring Endurance” if you want. If you want to be less serious you can go with something like “Team (My Legs are) Sore-ing Endurance.” The second thing to consider is what are the attributes of your team that you think are worth highlighting. Again, if you want to be serious you can go with something like “Team Running Mermaids.” A less serious take on that could be something like “We’re Mermaids Damnit!” or “Ursula’s Worst Nightmare.” A final thing to consider is something to shout-out where your team is from. A serious name could be something like “The Bronx Swimrun Bombers” or “Bomb Swimrunners from the Bronx” if you want to go that route. A bonus consideration would be something tied to your favorite food. Maybe there’s a sandwich with a great name that you want to co-op, a pastry that you’re obsessed with, or some healthy snack. Something like “Team Golly-zillas” (this is an actual sandwich name), “Team Donut Stop Trying” or “Team Pecan, not Pecan’t” are all solid potential options.

Hopefully now your creative juices are flowing and you have something to get started with choosing an epic team name. Obviously, you can also change your team name, so don’t put too much pressure on your team to hit a home run right away. Once you and your partner have made your choice, we recommend going all in and making a logo (this is optional), setting up a team Instagram account, and start posting about your Swimrun training and adventures. You’ll find (and soon fall in love with the fact) that there’s a very cool corner of the internet where Swimrunners from all over the world support each other and definitely appreciate a cool team name.

That’s it for this month’s column. Reach out to us if you have any burning Swimrun questions that you’d like to have answered. Until next time, go for a swim, and then a run, and then another swim.

Low Tide Boyz Swimrun