What’s in a name? For the No. 6 Wisconsin Badgers, a lot. From Aaron to Zander and everything in between, this team keeps stenographers busy and announcers tongue-twisted with a colorful roster that uses the whole alphabet.
The Badgers have names starting with 22 of the 26 letters on their 114-man roster. There are three David’s, two Eric’s, three Jack’s and two Nick’s. There’s Leo and Leon, Bret Verstegen and Brett Connors, two Connor’s and a Conor and two Alec’s and an Alex.
Then there are two T.J.’s, both linebackers, both starters and both always around the ball. One, T.J. Watt comes from a family of acronyms that has overshadowed him his whole Wisconsin career.
“I do go by Trent to people that I know really well, like all my family and close friends call me Trent, but other people call me T.J.” redshirt junior outside linebacker T.J. Watt said. “Derek’s a D.J., but the Full House D.J. was a girl, so he didn’t like being called D.J. at a young age.”
Trent Jordan Watt isn’t the only big-name Badger that keeps it shortened. Most people have enough problems pronouncing Ogunbowale, so the redshirt senior running back gives everyone a break with his first name.
“There’s people who have probably known me for 20 years that didn’t know my full name was Oluwadare, just because I never go by that,” Dare Ogunbowale said. “The only people that see it are probably the teachers on the first day of school when they’re reading the roll call off. Besides that, no one ever says it but my grandma.”
Ogunbowale is of Nigerian descent. His name means “God justifies me” in his father’s native language of Yoruba. The experienced running back takes a lot of pride in his name and his heritage, as do the other Nigerians on the team.
Redshirt junior defensive end Chikwe Obasih’s family comes from the Igbo tribe of Nigeria. He shortened his first name at a young age too, for a more selfish reason.
“My full name is Chikwerendu,” Obasih said. “The reason why it’s Chikwe is because in kindergarten, I couldn’t spell all of it, and that’s halfway through.”
Even Chikwe can be tough to say. The defensive lineman has heard pretty much every pronunciation as his name gets butchered over and over whenever people try to say it for the first time.
“The worst would be substitute teachers,” he said. “I’ve heard pretty bad ones like Chikwauke Obakee, Chikweed, and that would really suck when you’re doing popcorn in a reading class and your name never comes up in a book. There’s Jason’s, there’s Michael’s, there’s Allen’s, but there’s no Chikwe.”
There was almost no Chikwe at all. Obasih’s mother almost had a miscarriage when he was being born, so he was named Chikwerendu because it means “God, let me live” in Igbo.
Not every name has to carry such deep meaning. On a team with Dare and Karé, Bradrick and Keldric, Caesar, Gunnar and Jazz, there is no shortage of unique backgrounds and personalities to boot.
The name that brings them all together is the one stitched onto the left thigh of all of their gameday uniforms. They are Wisconsin Badgers first and foremost. There’s a reason their names go on the back.
