My favourite is probably the Defenders. Champions is generic (business champions, diversity champions, sports champions). Avengers is recognisable, but I never saw them avenging anything. Defenders is cool, those guys are defending us from all sorts of threats.

Thanks for the insight into the naming of Alpha Flight John, that was really interesting. 

I would -never- have concluded any connection between Vindicator and 'Flight'...not with a million guesses. 

Gotta agree. When I first heard the kids in school talking about it, I recall that the name alone intrigued me to check it out.

*******

'Course, Marvel already had Guardians of the Galaxy.... never minded Alpha Flight as the team name but I'm glad you were able to change Vindicator to Guardian, JB.

The Avengers & The Defenders rank high on my list as well... on the DC side I'd say The Outsiders, Doom Patrol & The Challengers of the Unknown stand out as cool team names for me.

-C!

After the fact, "Justice Society" is five syllables, where "Justice League" is three. Perhaps that's a factor as well.

ITEM: Justice League of America isn't really a fair subject for scrutiny, as it is obvious that it is an inheritor of the Justice Society of America. The word "league" might be subject to discussion; the phrase Justice <collective noun> of America was going to be. So... Justice Squad? Justice Force? Justice Union? League was probably as good as any, and I am nowhere near as smart as Julie Schwartz was.

And let's remember that Mike Gustovich tried Justice Machine in the 80s, but with no extension - a bit different take on the phrase.

ITEM: DC seemed to go for the descriptive, usually, where Marvel went for the bombastic - representative of their styles in the 60s, I think. And realistically, at the start, Marvel had the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Howlin' Commandos. (Granted, FF was pretty descriptive as well.) On DCs side were a lot more; the big guns were the JLA, the Teen Titans, the Legion of Super-Heroes. But there were also the Challengers of the Unknown, the Sea Devils, the Doom Patrol (probably the least descriptive of DC's super team names), the Atomic Knights, etc. That seemed to be how the team names worked for about ten years.

Oh, and let us not forget Archie's Crusaders - a Marvel type sobriquet. And the Marvel Family, a DC-ish name.

ITEM: As the 70s came about, the trend seemed to continue. Marvel's bombast with the Champions, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Defenders, the Invaders - again, mostly more exciting names than descriptive of the teams. I don't recall too many new DC teams through the 70s, actually. 

ITEM: After that, teams seemed to get a touch more generic, a bit wider in application, and often associated to a "original" title - although that occurred mostly with the X-Men titles (X-Force, X-Factor, New Mutants, etc.) The Outsiders and Alpha Flight, for example, weren't quite the type of team name that either company had used. And in addition, some titles came and went so fast that it was hard to notice the names unless you were paying close attention.

Personally, I was interested in the team names as they associated to their members more than just the names. "Time to call in the Avengers" - exciting! "This looks like a job for... the Justice League of America." I heard that rumble through the valleys and over the peaks, and I got goosebumps. "Then it's up to the X-Men?" "As always, when there's a world to save." "Look! It's the Legion!"

In the end, I'm a sucker for a name that engenders something exciting and potent... so both the Avengers and the JLA were perfectly exciting to me.

And whilst Champions is a generic name, it did suit the team.

I don't really have a problem with the name of groups. Outsiders is a favourite one of mine!

Doom Patrol works great, while Justice League of America always sounded more "official" and less impactful. Yet Justice League works great on it's own.

Some real life 3-syllable samples: C-I-A, F-B-I, Interpol, M-I-5, K-G-B, Green Berets, all carry impact. JLA works under this method too.

I always liked Alpha Flight but to this day I still don't know what  'flight" is in this context. Is it a noun or a verb? Does it designate a group in some way or an action? 

I think "X-Men" sounds best but I'm sure it sounds sexist to the contemporary ear. Especially when, since the Claremont days, the number of women in the group kept expanding (no pun intended).