Commissioner Paul Tagliabue had one rule.

In the late summer and early fall of 1998, an advisory council of 13 prominent Tennesseans gathered with the purpose of finding a new name for the Tennessee Oilers. Owner Bud Adams had relocated the Houston Oilers — an organization whose uniforms will be commemorated Sunday when the Tennessee Titans (5-8) host Houston's new team, the Texans (7-6) at Nissan Stadium — before the 1997 season and retained the Oilers' nickname, logos and color scheme for two years after the move. But in conjunction with the opening of a new stadium, and after years of local outcry petitioning Adams for a name more fitting to Tennessee's values and culture, the franchise set out in search for a new moniker.

Which led to Tagliabue's one piece of advice.

"He came and met with us and said one thing: ‘I don’t want any more fish names,’" remembered Jim Haslam, founder of the Pilot Corporation and advisory council member.

The 1990s were a hectic time for pro sports expansion. And, for whatever reason, aquatic nicknames were in vogue. The San Jose Sharks, Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays had all recently debuted, so that ruled out the Nashville Catfish, the Tennessee Trout or the Music City Smallmouth Bass.

Some gill-free frontrunners eventually emerged. On July 28, 1998, Tennessee Football L.P., filed applications for seven trademarks. They were, in alphabetical order: The Tennessee Commanders, the Tennessee Fury, the Tennessee Pioneers, the Tennessee Presidents, the Tennessee Tradition, the Tennessee Vipers and the Tennessee Wolves.

Haslam has varying memories about each of those options.

• Pioneers: "Yes, I didn’t like that at all. That was the idea. Davy Crockett. That was why it was thrown out."

• Tradition: "That was another (name with the initials) TT. I don’t think anybody liked that one."

• Fury: "I don’t remember that one coming up, but it doesn’t sound very good."

• Wolves: "I remember Wolves. You get into animals, that’s not safe."

• Vipers: "I don’t remember that."

• Presidents: "I remember that came up and they said ‘Hey, we aren’t in Washington.’"

• Commanders: "Washington picked that one, didn’t they?"

Clearly, if you're reading this, you probably know none of these became NFL nicknames. Well, not for another two decades. The Washington Football Team did become the Washington Commanders in 2022, a full 23 years after Tennessee Football L.P., abandoned its trademark application for the Tennessee Commanders.

Tennessee Tradition might've been a name nobody liked, but the idea of alliteration was alluring. Double-T names pop, and names of this nature are surprisingly distinctive. To this day only four NFL teams have alliterative names, five if you count the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

So on Sept. 25, 1998, Tennessee Football L.P., filed for two more trademarks: Tennessee Tornados and Tennessee Titans.

Haslam says he doesn't remember much about the name Tennessee Tornados, but he remembers what made Titans stand out as the best option.

"You want something that’s symbolic of what you’re wanting to do," Haslam said. "If somebody is a Titan, he or she is someone to respect. The name draws respect. It sounds good: Tennessee Titans. Tennessee Titans. It passed the smell test or the sound test or whatever you want to call it."

Another factor: brevity. Five of the other eight options were eight, nine or 10 letter nicknames. It'd be a lot harder, for instance, to fit Tennessee Tradition on a T-shirt than Tennessee Titans. The time to start printing those T-shirts came on Nov. 14, 1998, when Adams announced the Tennessee Oilers would be renamed the Tennessee Titans starting with the 1999 season.

A little over a year (and one Music City Miracle) later, the team with the NFL's newest name was playing for a Super Bowl.

This weekend, if just for an afternoon, the Titans will cosplay as the Oilers again. Doing so with the Texans visiting is bound to rankle some Houstonians; the Titans organization retains the rights to all Oilers iconography and history despite the Texans occupying the Oilers' old stomping grounds.

But let there be Fury. Call in the Wolves. Plead to your Commanders and Presidents with Tornados of anger and the bite of Vipers. The Tennessee Oilers are a Tennessee Tradition. After all, they were the Pioneers that paved the way for the Tennessee Titans to exist.

Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Tennessee Titans got their name in Nashville in change from Oilers