There are some nicknames that reside in the SEC that you can’t find anywhere else. When you hear “Crimson Tide” or “Gators” or “Razorbacks” or “Gamecocks” or “Volunteers,” you know exactly who’s being talking about.

Of course, there are also three “Tigers” and two “Bulldogs” in the conference, but each team has a very unique story as to how it got its nickname.

In all these cases, we looked through the school’s online libraries and official websites for this historical info.

Alabama

In the very early 1900s, the Alabama football team was originally referred to as the “Varsity” or the “Crimson White” in reference to the school’s colors. Some newspapers started using “The Thin Red Line.”

That could be found in many newspaper archives up until 1906, probably phased out in order to reserve “The Thin Red Line” about 90 years in advance for the 1998 World War II film of the same name with a loaded cast. (I guess they knew it was going to be that good).

According to the school and many other accounts, former sports editor of the Birmingham Age-Herald, Hugh Roberts, used “Crimson Tide” to describe an Alabama-Auburn game played in Birmingham in 1907. The two schools wouldn’t play again for about 40 years when they’d meet again in 1948.

That game, which Auburn was a heavy favorite to win, was played on a field covered in red mud and the Alabama players’ white jerseys were covered in it. Alabama surprisingly forced a 6-6 tie, and the name was popularized by other writers thereafter.

Arkansas

Yet another school got its unique nickname from playing a hard-fought game against a conference rival. Arkansas was the “Cardinals” up until 1909.

That season, then-coach Hugo Bezdek coined what would forever become the school’s permanent nickname when he called his players “a wild band of Razorback hogs” after beating LSU.

That was the second season in Bezdek’s five-year tenure, and the “Cardinals” went a perfect 7-0. Arkansas wouldn’t record another undefeated season until 1964, when it went 11-0 and was named national champions by the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA).

One year after that 1909 campaign, the Arkansas student body voted to change the nickname to Razorbacks.

Auburn

While many fans around the country are confused as to what Auburn’s nickname really is since they hear “War Eagle” more often than they hear “Tigers,” there’s no mistaking that it’s Tigers.

That’s because Auburn has consistently held that nickname since it first fielded a football team all the way back in 1892 against (you guessed it, an old rival) Georgia.

“Tigers” was inspired from a line in Oliver Goldsmith’s poem “The Deserted Village” published in May 1770. In that poem, you’ll find the line, “Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey.”

Florida

There are a couple stories about how the school came to be the “Gators,” but the first football team to officially be called the “Alligators” was back in 1911.

Some attribute it to the captain and center of that 1911 squad, Neal “Bo Gator” Storter. However, Storter himself denied it, saying that he saw it in a newspaper article that described a Florida road trip as “an invasion of alligators.”

In that case, the “alligators” moniker may have started before that, and this story may explain it. In 1948, the son of a Gainesville, Fla. merchant claimed that alligators appeared on pennants sold at his father’s store as early as 1908.

Georgia

There are also a couple stories associated with Georgia’s nickname. One of them surrounds the University of Georgia’s first president, Abraham Baldwin. Apparently, he was a Yale graduate and even designed many of the school’s first buildings using the same blueprints from those at Yale.

That very well may be the case, but it was certainly popularized by member of two newspapers in Atlanta back in 1920.

That season, Morgan Blake of the Atlanta Journal reportedly wrote that “Bulldogs” would fit nicely because it conveys dignity as well as ferocity. Cliff Wheatley of the Atlanta Constitution used “Bulldogs” multiple times after Georgia’s 0-0 tie with Virginia a few days later, and it took off from there.

Kentucky

While a lot of other teams’ nicknames can be traced back to games against long-time rivals, Kentucky’s story stems back to a game against a school it’s only played twice (1909 and 1913) in school history.

The story is similar to Arkansas in that it was coined by describing how the team played during a victory. Following a 6-2 win against Illinois in that first meeting, Commandant Carbusier, then head of the military department, told a group of students at a chapel service that the team “fought like Wildcats.”

The name picked up popularity from there and was adopted by the school.

LSU

Fans in Baton Rouge have Dr. Charles E. Coates to thank for the school’s nickname. The first coach in LSU history, who also credits Dr. H.A. Morgan for helping him in the program’s infant stages, recalls the first game all the way back in 1893.

Around the year of 1895, Coates himself wrote that he suggested the name “Louisiana Tigers,” the name which had also been given to those who represented the state during the Civil War and had gained a reputation for fighting hard.

The name was actually applied in an umbrella-like fashion to many companies sent to Virginia. The name was published in New Orleans newspapers and became a fixture.

Mississippi State

Mississippi State has had a few nicknames in school history. That includes Aggies during the initial Mississippi A&M College years and Maroons when it became Mississippi State College in 1932.

However, the Bulldogs nickname still held a place through that entire time. In fact, it was used interchangeably with the others since as early as 1905. Mississippi State references an 11-0 shutout win over rival Ole Miss that year in which the team had a funeral for the Rebels’ spirit.

“A coffin was secured, decorated with University colors and a bulldog pup placed on top. It was then placed on the shoulders of a dozen cadets, and the procession started down Capitol Street, preceded by the brass band playing a very pathetic funeral march,” according to the school.

There were other references to the Bulldogs as well before it was officially adopted in 1961.

Missouri

Missouri shares a very similar story to LSU’s when it comes to its identical Tigers nickname, which also got its roots from a group of militia called “The Missouri Tigers” during the Civil War.

The name was adopted by the athletic committee in official recognition of that group as soon as the football program came into being in 1890.

Ole Miss

The University of Mississippi’s nickname wasn’t established until 46 years later. In 1936, Judge Ben Guider of Vicksburg suggested the nickname Rebels, which was among five finalists submitted to Southern sports writers. Those were narrows from an original list that had more than 200 potential nicknames.

Rebels won in a landslide among the newsmen that responded to the contest that was sponsored by the student newspaper, The Mississippian, as 18 of the 21 selected it. The university officially announced the new nickname through the late Judge William Hemingway, the University Athletic Committee chairman.

He stated, according to the university’s website: “If 18 sports writers wish to use ‘Rebels’, I shall not rebel, so let it go ‘Ole Miss Rebels.'”

South Carolina

As mentioned earlier, the nickname “Gamecocks” is almost unique. While South Carolina is the only FBS school that uses it, FCS school Jacksonville State of the Ohio Valley Conference also uses it.

Nonetheless, South Carolina was first referred to unofficially as the “Gamecocks.” It was shortened to become one word in 1903 by the Columbia newspaper, The State.

A gamecock is a fighting rooster known for its spirit and courage, and cock fighting was its own popular sport all over the United States in the 19th century. Of course, it’s illegal now in all 50 states with Louisiana being the last to outlaw it, but the Palmetto State has a long history with the sport.

Tennessee

The state of Tennessee holds great pride in its involvement in the War of 1812. That year, President James Madison sent out a call for service, asking for 2,800 volunteers but got way more than he expected.

He ended up getting 30,000, which led to Tennessee being dubbed “The Volunteer State.”

As for the University of Tennessee’s athletic teams, the nickname was first used in 1902 by the Atlanta Constitution to refer to its players after a Tennessee-Georgia Tech game.

Texas A&M

The Aggies nickname didn’t officially come into being until 1949. That’s when the school’s yearbook was changed from “The Longhorn” to “Aggieland.”

References to students as “Aggies” came much sooner than that in the 1920s, and that name arose from Texas A&M students being called “Farmers” dating all the way back to the early 1900s.

Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt got its nickname from a nickname given to the person who founded the school for $1 million back in 1873. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was always referred to as a Commodore even though he never held the old U.S. navy rank, which is where the name comes from. That’s also why logos for the school athletics show a 19th century naval officer.

Still, Vanderbilt — a shipping and railroad magnate — did donate his largest steamship to Union forces during the Civil War.

You can basically say that the Vanderbilt Commodores got their school name from Commodore Vanderbilt.