When the franchise entered the National League for the 1962 season, team owners asked fans to select from among ten names they had chosen. The ten names were:
- Avengers
- Bees
- Burros
- Continentals
- Jets
- Mets
- NYBS
- Rebels
- Skyliners
- Skyscrapers.
Mets (which is short for Metropolitans) won rather easily, with two other names getting write-in votes: Empires and Islanders. Several of the rejected names were later selected by other pro teams (Islanders and Jets, for example).
