7 Names the Toronto WNBA expansion team should consider

The WNBA will be coming to Toronto, Canada, an obvious and exciting selection for the next expansion team. Basketball is booming in Canada right now, and it makes all the sense in the world to connect the two. The new team will be coming in 2026, which means there is a lot of work to do.

In 1993, the Toronto Raptors underwent a process that is equal parts necessary, fun, and extremely stressful: selecting a name for a new franchise. In fact, at the start of that process they weren't the Toronto Raptors: they were the Toronto Blanks, with space to fill in whatever they wanted.

Toronto owner John Bitove Jr. went for something popular, distinct and appealing to younger fans, and after soliciting options that included the Dragons, Beavers, Hogs, T-Rex and Tarantulas, Bitove and the NBA landed on the Raptors, influenced by the No. 1 movie in the world that year, Jurassic Park.

The Toronto WNBA team needs a name

Fast forward 31 years, and the next professional basketball team in Toronto will need a name of its own. What should they pick? They need to factor in relevance and meaning to both Toronto and women's basketball, any connection to the Raptors, the look of the name in print, how it could be shortened or potential nicknames, artwork and logo, and whether or not that name has been used by another sports team. It's a lot to keep in balance.

Let's dream about some options and decide which one is the best fit for this new team. We will do so by discussing different categories for team names, then selecting the best name from that category to advance to the final round, when we will pick the winner.

We begin with some words that will be close to home - names with meaning to Toronto and the greater nation of Canada.