MaxPreps Mascot Mondays: Maryland high school mascots

Just as important as a school's name and its location is its mascot. Options abound, and some teams go with the commonplace while others go with the truly unique.

In Maryland, there are 246 schools with mascots listed in the MaxPreps database. Listed below are the Top 16 most popular mascot names in Maryland, the mascot names that only one school owns and other mascot facts/stats.

NO CAMPFIRE NECESSARY
When the Allegany (Cumberland) Campers go play on the road, they won't be bringing any tents or sleeping bags. The school's mascot name comes from its location, which is on the former "Camp Hill," a spot where soldiers camped during the Civil War. The area was called Campobello during the war, and that translates in Latin to "Camp of war." The Campers' logo has nothing to do with the modern-day camping some of us enjoy. Instead, it appears to be an American Indian chief.

BACKWARDS THINKING
Your first question is likely "What the heck is an Obezag?" After you don't get much of an answer when it comes to the mascot name for Key (Annapolis), the second question becomes "Why would they model their mascot name after that?" It's speculated that the school was built on the site of an old estate and there were three gazebos left over, so the school wanted the mascot name to reflect that. But rather than being unique and choosing Gazebos, they turned it around and went with Obezags. As you can imagine, no other school is the Obezags.

JUST ADD AN 'E'
The question about the mascot name for Wilde Lake (Columbia) is: Are they cats from the nearby lake, or did they just add an "e" to Wildcats? Either way, the fact remains that no other school in America is the Wildecats. If that "e" wasn't there, then Wilde Lake would be school No. 722 in the nation to be the Wildcats.

APOSTROPHE = ALLI
Kids from Reservoir (Fulton) are Alligators for all intensive purposes. But they stay unique by going as 'Gators, holding the prestige of being the only school in the nation to do so. It's not known if the mascot name is officially 'Gators, as compared to Alligators. The apostrophe gives mascot names the chance to jump to the front of the line, and from what we can see in the MaxPreps database, Reservoir jumps to the front as the only school with an apostrophe as the first character.

NOBODY CRABS BETTER
They say they are the "Crab Capital of the World" in Crisfield, located aside Chesapeake Bay. If you want to hold that title you had better start raising the youngsters in the community to be Crabbers, and that's what they do at Crisfield. It's a mascot name that you will only find in the Chesapeake Bay area of the country, as the other Crabbers are from Hampton, Va. It's special that a school's mascot reflects the lifeblood of the town, and in Crisfield they have done one of the best jobs in the nation.

TOP 16 MOST POPULAR MASCOT NAMES
# Eagles 14 (There is 1 Golden Eagles and 1 Screamin' Eagles)
# Panthers 13
# Warriors 10
Rams 9
# Lions 8
# Wildcats 7 (There is 1 Wildecats)
Patriots 7
# Falcons 7
# Cougars 7
# Knights 7 (There are 2 Black Knights)
Saints 5
# Vikings 5
# Bulldogs 5
Cavaliers 5
# Mustangs 5
Hornets 5
# Denotes mascot name is in America's Top 15

MASCOT NAMES USED BY ONLY 1 SCHOOL

* ‘Gators Admirals Barons * Bay Hawks Bengals Blue Devils Bluebirds Bobcats Braves Buccaneers Bucks Bulls Cadets * Campers Cardinals Cobras Comets

Coyotes Crabbers Dons Dragons Engineers Foresters Friars Gaels Gators Generals Golden Bears Golden Eagles * Golden Elks Gophers Greyhounds Hubs

Hurricanes Huskies Lancers Leopards Lightning * Little Hoyas Mallards Mariners * Mighty Ducks Millers Miners Mountaineers * Obezags Orioles Pirates Poets

Pointers Pumas Quakers Railroaders Rebels Red Storm Rockets Sabres Sailors Scorpions * Screamin' Eagles Sentinels Stags Storm Tartans * Wildecats Wolfpack

* Denotes that no other school in America has that mascot name

MASCOT STATS
Most popular mascot name is used by 5.7 percent of schools.
There are 106 different mascot names for 246 schools.
9 schools have mascot names that no other American school has.
Maryland's Top 16 features 11 of America's Top 15 mascot names.