George Washington Unveils New Nickname for Its Sports Teams

The school settled on a new moniker after a yearlong search.

After retiring its “Colonials” moniker last summer due to “division among the community,” George Washington University has unveiled its new nickname.

The school will now go by the moniker of “Revolutionaries,” the university announced Wednesday.

School president Mark Wrighton and Chuck Todd of NBC News, a George Washington alum, unveiled the announcement in a post on Facebook and Instagram.

“This is an exciting day for the George Washington University Revolutionaries,” Wrighton said. “I am very grateful for the active engagement of our community throughout the development of the new moniker. This process was truly driven by our students, faculty, staff and alumni, and the result is a moniker that broadly reflects our community and our distinguished and distinguishable GW spirit.”

George Washington asked community members to submit new nickname suggestions in January, and students, alumni and faculty delivered. The new school moniker was revealed by the university after 8,000 different suggestions were submitted for review by the school.

Revolutionaries was chosen as the new school nickname after the 8,000 entries were narrowed down to four finalists. The other names considered included the Blue Fog, Ambassadors and Sentinels.

Per the release, the Revolutionaries moniker “represents GW community members because they are not afraid to break boundaries and change the game. The GW Revolutionaries go beyond what’s conventional or expected to focus on shifting mindsets and creating a new future for ourselves and our world.”

In addition to the 8,000 nickname suggestions, the school also received over 47,000 “points of feedback” on the new moniker as well.

“To have 47,000 points of feedback from the GW community is a testament to the pride people have in this institution and we are proud to offer them a new moniker that will propel us as we move ahead in our third century,” vice president for communications and marketing Ellen Moran said.

The moniker will go into effect during the upcoming 2023-24 academic year.