You do realize that Minnesota's official nickname is French, right? L'Etoile du Nord. As for Wisconsin, they have town names like Eau Claire and Prairie du Chien (which the locals pronounce 'Prayerduhsheen') As for QC, I think the Avs still own the rights to the 'Nordiques', which might complicate things. And if Minnesota had gone with the Blue Ox thing, would it have been the 'Blue Oxen' or the 'Blue Oxes' (kind of like TOR is the Leafs and not the Leaves) And as long as I'm on this admitedly insane rant
, I think the Dallas Stars should modify their name to the 'Lone Stars'
Yeah, and Montana has places like Havre. The French influence in most places in this country are very limited. Northern Maine and Louisiana are generally the exception. Names may be French inspired (I'm from a place where we have places named North Versailles (pronounced Ver-sales) and DuBois (pronounced do-boys) but there hasn't been a French influence in this country in eons in most places. In Minnesota there are far more people of Scandinavian heritage than French. Hell, in the entire country there are more people with Polish heritage than there is with French heritage (and Irish and English and German and Italian, etc. Only 3.8% of Americans have any French heritage. For the record, neither Minnesota nor Wisconsin rank in the top 10 in the country in French population percentages (unsurprisingly dominated by New England and Louisiana). Only 4% of Minnesotans have any French heritage and 5% of Wisconsinites have any French heritage. That puts them both behind, shockingly to me, my adopted home of Montana.
Anyway, I'm not trying to belittle the French of this country or anywhere...I'm just pointing out that in the grand scheme of the melting pot of America they're a minor player and the states where there is a huge influence aren't the ones that are able to hold teams (top 5 states for French heritage: New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Louisiana). Going with a French name in a place like Minnesota would be stretching it when more than 2/3 of the inhabitants are from German/Scandinavian heritage. French bloodlines in Minnesota rank behind, again, the Polish.
To me that would be like naming a Montanan sports team Banditos because the state's name (and motto) is Spanish. This being regardless of the fact that roughly 2.3% of Montanans have any Spanish or Hispanic heritage. Like with most states the dominant ancestries are German, Irish, and English.