Chess Team Names: 130 Funny and Clever Ideas

Your team is signed up, the boards are booked, and the entry form has one empty box: team name. Here are 130 chess team names and chess club names, sorted by the kind of team you have: funny, clever, school, club, office and two player bughouse pairs. Take one as it is, or swap in your own school or town. At the end there is a short guide to picking a name that still sounds good in round 5.

1 Funny Chess Team Names

Puns are a chess tradition. These work for club nights, pub leagues, friendly matches and any event where nobody is too serious.

• Pawn Stars
• Knight Riders
• The Rook Stars
• Check Yourself
• Bishops Gone Wild
• Queen's Gambit Club
• Pawns of Anarchy
• Knights Who Say Check
• Rook and Roll
• The Mating Net
• Castle Crashers
• Fork Knights
• En Passant Posse
• Pawn Shop Heroes
• Kings of the Castle
• Stale Mates
• The Blunder Brothers
• Check Please
• Hanging Pawns
• The Pin Crowd
• Zugzwang Clan
• Skewer You
• Resign Supreme
• Knight Shift
• Rooks of Hazard

2 Clever Chess Team Names

Names for teams that want other players to nod. Each one is a real chess idea, so it doubles as a small lesson for newer team mates.

• Tempo Thieves
• The Fianchetto Four
• Open File Outlaws
• Back Rank Bandits
• The Seventh Rank
• Discovered Attack
• Zwischenzug
• The Minor Pieces
• Passed Pawns
• Opposite Coloured Bishops
• The Long Diagonal
• King's Indian Attackers
• Sicilian Dragons
• The Exchange Sacrifice
• Quiet Move
• The Poisoned Pawns
• Prophylaxis
• Windmill Tactics
• Pawn Storm
• Endgame Engineers

3 School Chess Team Names

For primary and secondary school teams, keep it short, easy to spell and easy to cheer. Swap [School] for your school name or mascot. If you are just getting started, see our guide on how to start a school chess club.

• [School] Knights
• [School] Royals
• The Checkmates
• Pawn Patrol
• Rook Rangers
• The Little Kings
• Mighty Pawns
• Queen Bees
• Knight Owls
• Castle Kids
• The Thinking Caps
• Brainy Bishops
• Checkmate Champs
• Square Squad
• The Promotion Party
• Board Bosses
• Dragon Knights
• Royal Rookies
• The Golden Pawns
• 64 Squares Club

4 Chess Club Names

A club name has to last for years, so plain usually beats funny. The town or the meeting night in the name helps new players find you. Swap [Town] or [Street] for your own.

• [Town] Chess Club
• [Town] Knights
• The [Street] Rooks
• Friday Knights
• Tuesday Night Tactics
• The Sixty Four
• Kingside Chess Club
• Open File Chess Club
• The Gambit Room
• Castle Street Chess
• The Wooden Pieces
• Black and White Club
• First Move Chess Club
• The Thinking Room
• Coffee and Checkmate
• Sunday Blitz Society
• The Quiet Game
• Two Knights Chess Club
• The Clock Punchers
• Pawn and Pint

Starting a club from nothing? Our guide on how to start a chess club covers the venue, the first night and keeping people coming back.

5 Office and Work Chess Team Names

For company leagues and team building days. Department jokes always land better than general ones, so use these as a pattern and put your own team in.

• Checkmate Capital
• The Board Members
• Strategic Assets
• Knights of the Spreadsheet
• Ctrl Alt Checkmate
• The Sales Gambit
• Pawns in Accounting
• Queen's Budget
• Deadline Defence
• The Stand Up Mates
• Rook Cause Analysis
• Agile Bishops
• Merge Conflict
• The Quarterly Blunder
• Castle Short Sellers

6 Bughouse and Two Player Team Names

Bughouse is played by teams of two on two boards, so every pair needs a name. These also suit doubles events and parent and child teams. New to the game? Read the bughouse chess rules first.

• Double Trouble
• Two Knights Defence
• The Bishop Pair
• Doubled Rooks
• Battery Power
• Left Board Right Board
• Drop It Like It's Knight
• The Piece Passers
• Twin Kings
• Partners in Check
• Sit Sit Sit
• Pass the Pawn
• Two Heads One Clock
• The Tandem
• Brain and Hand

7 Strong and Serious Chess Team Names

For teams that would rather sound dangerous than funny.

• Royal Guard
• Iron Rooks
• The Black Kings
• White Knights
• Storm Bishops
• The Grandmasters
• Checkmate Kings
• The Last Rank
• King Hunters
• Silent Assassins
• The Iron Pawns
• Thunder Rooks
• Night Knights
• The Crown Takers
• Dark Square Dynasty

8 How to Pick a Good Chess Team Name

• Say it out loud. The organiser will read it to the room every round. If it is hard to say, it will be said wrong.
• Keep it to 2 or 3 words. Long names get cut off on pairing sheets, wall charts and TV screens.
• Make it fit the event. A pun is great at a pub league. A school team playing other schools is better off with the school name in it.
• Check nobody else has it. Two teams called Pawn Stars in the same league is a real problem on results day.
• Let the team vote. Put three names on the board and count hands. Players wear a name they chose with more pride.

9 Put Your Team Names on the Board

Once the teams are named, somebody has to pair them. ChessHost is free chess tournament software that runs in a browser. For a match between two teams, tap "New Tournament" and switch on "Team Battle" in the game settings: it pairs the two teams board by board and keeps the team score. For bughouse, switch on "Bughouse" instead and add each pair, with a team name if you like. Players can join by QR code from their phone, no app and no account, and the "TV Display" link shows every team name and score on a big screen.

Our team chess tournament guide explains team formats, board order and scoring in more detail.