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Public offers new Gwinnett Braves name: Grasshoppers, greats?

By Matt Kempner
Sept 26, 2016

You’re welcome, Gwinnett Braves.

You wanted a new name for the Minor League baseball team? Locals are offering suggestions. Like the Gwinnett Grasshoppers. The Fireflies. The Groundhogs.

ExploreWe want to get it right because Gwinnett County spent $64 million building a stadium for the Triple-A team. So far, the team has been starved for paying fans.

General manager North Johnson has said he's contemplating dropping the "Braves" name. He said potential fans confused it with the Atlanta Braves, the Major League team the G-Braves are affiliated with. But Johnson struggled coming up with good alternatives.

So I posed the challenge to random people I came upon. They and readers of an earlier column I wrote about the conundrum and my poor name suggestions, sought inspiration from pretty much everything around us.

Really: The Gwinnett Peach Cobblers (thank you, Mery Lynn McCorkle) to the Gwinnett Nasutis (after a former county commissioner who pushed for the stadium) to the Gwinnett Greats (riffing off the “Gwinnett is Great” pronouncement once plastered on water tanks off I-85).

The top suggestion I heard: Keep the Gwinnett Braves.

ExploreCheck out name ideas in this AJC video.

About the Author

Matt Kempner is an award-winning journalist who seeks out intriguing twists about people and subjects beyond what the AJC might typically cover. A former columnist and editor, his past assignments have included business investigations, energy, the economy, entrepreneurs, big business, consumer spending, politics, government and the environment.

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