Teams & Riders Coolest Names in the Peloton*

[GenericBoonenFan]

They see me rollin' they hatin'
https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/dominique-rollin

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

I can't get over how stupid "Antwan Tolhoek" is. "Antwan", for god's sake.

It’s Antoine, but then in Dutch. Same with Toine/Twan. I mean, it’s not even the Dutch version of the name, which is Anton, but Antwan is Antoine phonetically spelled.

It’s pretty stupid I guess, even though not that uncommom, but had his parents decided to spell it Antoine no one would’ve noticed.

I know what it is, that's what makes it so blergh.

But how are you supposed to know which syllable to stress without a double vowel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwaan_Randle_El

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

But how are you supposed to know which syllable to stress without a double vowel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwaan_Randle_El

*cries in a corner*

 

[RedheadDane]

Szymon Sajnok

Any name that starts with "sz" is just instantly cool.
And his surname sounds kinda like "sej nok", which is Danish for "cool enough"

 

[Rollthedice]

Gage Hect. Just won in Colorado outsmarting the peloton.

 

[Kokoso]

Re: Re:

For me his royal majesty emperor Leopold König has same charm almost as good as one name I can't recall now...

Cunego > König

You don't get my point by the looks of it. The point is König means king. Cunego doesn't even mean König as far as I know.

IMHO König sounds more royal and certainly cooler than Cunego anyway

 

[Kokoso]

Alex Ekström

Quite an extreme name if you ask me

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

For me his royal majesty emperor Leopold König has same charm almost as good as one name I can't recall now...

Cunego > König

You don't get my point by the looks of it. The point is König means king. Cunego doesn't even mean König as far as I know.

IMHO König sounds more royal and certainly cooler than Cunego anyway

"Cunego" is an Italian adaptation of "König". It is literally the same.

 

[Kokoso]

Re: Re:

For me his royal majesty emperor Leopold König has same charm almost as good as one name I can't recall now...

Cunego > König

You don't get my point by the looks of it. The point is König means king. Cunego doesn't even mean König as far as I know.

IMHO König sounds more royal and certainly cooler than Cunego anyway

"Cunego" is an Italian adaptation of "König". It is literally the same.

I don't think so, nowhere to be found. Anyway even if it was, it wouldn't work because part of reason that name is cool is it sounds German and first name is Leopold. König Leopold sounds right, König Damiano doesn't.

 

[Der Effe]

The Belgians kings, or koning(en), indeed had their ancestry in German speaking territory (Thuringia, if I am correct) which makes it pretty funny.

Regarding to the surname, we also have Benjamin King and Peter Koning.

 

[railxmig]

I will be very simple here. Cunego sounds kinda tame compared to the grandiose sound of König. I actually though Küng was king in German, so i was ready to propose Stefan Küng, but it seems to be incorrect.

I really like the name Kruijswijk. It sounds like a name for a battleship. Also some of those Colombian names are cool.

 

[hrotha]

I would imagine "Küng" is a Swiss German variant of "king/König". As for "Cunego", I really like its sound and that it's an Italian development of a Germanic word (see here. That only adds to the charm even if it's not so transparent, because it carries with it a chunk of the history of northern Italy.

 

[staubsauger]

I prefer Erik Breukink over Kruijswijk, because with a little imagination it literally means Breakin'!

Too bad the opponents were Breakin' Erik on the Pordoi pass at that 1989 Giro d'Italia instead of him Breukink Fignon!

 

[barmaher]

I like names that are so typical of the country they're from.

Like Sean Kelly, Pedro Delgado, Roberto Ferrari, Jean-Francois Bernard, Jan Ullrich, etc.

 

[RedheadDane]

Then there's Fabio Jakobsen; first name sounds Italian, surname sounds Danish, guy is Dutch - go figure!

Also, according to Chris Anker Sørensen Pierre-Luc Perichon is the best French name ever.

The names you come across when checking start lists; Daan Van Sintmaartensdijk! Hmm... does "dijk" mean "dike"? Would make sense to have it a part of a Dutch name (like Ellen Van Dijk).

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Re:

Then there's Fabio Jakobsen; first name sounds Italian, surname sounds Danish, guy is Dutch - go figure!

Also, according to Chris Anker Sørensen Pierre-Luc Perichon is the best French name ever.

The names you come across when checking start lists; Daan Van Sintmaartensdijk! Hmm... does "dijk" mean "dike"? Would make sense to have it a part of a Dutch name (like Ellen Van Dijk).

Yeah it is, dijk = dike/embankment

 

[RedheadDane]

Makes more sense than all the various Van Den Bergs running around. Though, I remember reading somewhere that the creation of family names in the Netherlands happened when the French occupied the area under Napoleon and demanded that everyone should have a family name (as opposed to patronym, I guess), and the Dutch just decided to take the piss!

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Re:

Makes more sense than all the various Van Den Bergs running around. Though, I remember reading somewhere that the creation of family names in the Netherlands happened when the French occupied the area under Napoleon and demanded that everyone should have a family name (as opposed to patronym, I guess), and the Dutch just decided to take the piss!

Yeah that's why they have
Lars Boom (tree)
Stef Kurl (curl)
Ivar slik (swallow)
Oh and CX-rider Thijs Al which just means all and then I forget Richard Groenewegen, whose name just means "green roads" which was fitting for a CX-rider.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Slik is also a type of land which makes more sense as a surname.

 

[toolittle]

Re: Re:

This is coolest name in cycling world beyond debate.... Peter Sagan.

Strange, nobody knows Sagan here?
Coolest name in cycling history.

If not, Latour is a symbol of cycling race.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Then there's Fabio Jakobsen; first name sounds Italian, surname sounds Danish, guy is Dutch - go figure!

Also, according to Chris Anker Sørensen Pierre-Luc Perichon is the best French name ever.

The names you come across when checking start lists; Daan Van Sintmaartensdijk! Hmm... does "dijk" mean "dike"? Would make sense to have it a part of a Dutch name (like Ellen Van Dijk).

Sint-Maartensdijk is simply the name of a town in the Netherlands. So his ancestors most likely were from (=van) that town.

 

[RedheadDane]

But does the town have a dijk?
Or are/were the Dutch as ridiculous when it comes to naming towns? I mean, don't tell me the town is in the middle of the frikkin' Limburg province!

This is coolest name in cycling world beyond debate.... Peter Sagan.

Strange, nobody knows Sagan here?
Coolest name in cycling history.

If not, Latour is a symbol of cycling race.

I'm not talking about the coolest rider, I'm talking about the coolest name.

 

[railxmig]

Re:

But does the town have a dijk?
Or are/were the Dutch as ridiculous when it comes to naming towns? I mean, don't tell me the town is in the middle of the frikkin' Limburg province!

This is coolest name in cycling world beyond debate.... Peter Sagan.

Strange, nobody knows Sagan here?
Coolest name in cycling history.

If not, Latour is a symbol of cycling race.

I'm not talking about the coolest rider, I'm talking about the coolest name.

Actually, i think it can be a pretty cool name, but it depends on the language. I'm not sure if Sagan isn't Slovakian for pot.

As for town names, the worst (when it comes to their English meaning) are by far in France: Die, Corps, Condom, Bitche, Gap, Pussy (in La Léchère-les-Bains) and i think i've forgotten about some others. Belgium also has some... exotic names like Nazareth, Egypten (Drie-Egypten) and Lochristi.

 

[hrotha]

But does the town have a dijk?
Or are/were the Dutch as ridiculous when it comes to naming towns? I mean, don't tell me the town is in the middle of the frikkin' Limburg province!

Well, Sint-Maartensdijk is in Zeeland and pretty close to the sea, so the answer is probably "yes". But if you found a town with a name in -dijk that was pretty far inland, it would probably be either because the shoreline has changed, or because the -dijk element somehow retained its more generic sense of "earthwork, ditch".

 

[RedheadDane]

If we're including place names as well now - we are - I'd say some of the names of the climbs and cobbled sections in the Spring Classics are pretty awesome.