The Most Common College Mascots

Banner Society: "America’s most common college mascot genres are Cats (15.9%) and Birds (15.5%), followed in the non-human animal genre by Dogs (6.8%), then Bears and Horses ... The most popular human is a Sword Guy, which includes Spartans, Trojans, Knights, and so on ... The Mid-Atlantic is Bird Country, the South and Midwest are Cat Country ... The Lion, toted as a concept to America from other countries, is a big-city beast, setting up multi-Lion royal courts around New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and Dallas ... The Southeast has a Tiger Belt thing ... "

"The single most common American college mascot is ... the Eagle. Including the Bald, Golden, Purple, Running, Screaming, and Soaring varieties, I count 91 teams named after Eagles, in addition to Auburn’s War Eagle, Liberty’s Sparky Eagle, and so on ... Second in bird-type names is the Hawk, the leader among all nickname clusters in name variety ... Bird World rounds out with 27 Falcons, 24 Cardinals, 16 Owls, 12 Roadrunners .. nine Ospreys ... eight Blue Jays, six Chickens ... and 13 others ... 41% of all college Dog mascots are Bulldogs." Other dogs include: "10 Huskies, seven Greyhounds, six Coyotes, five Terriers, three Fox variations, two Pointers, two Salukis, and two Retrievers."

"Cowboys/Cowgirls are almost entirely west of the Mississippi ... Loggers, Foresters, and Lumberjacks are mostly Upper Midwest and Northwest. The most common mascot job type, the Explorer (which includes Pioneers, Trailblazers, Mountaineers, etc.) appears all over ... The most common mascot profession is fighters ... This lumps together all Sword Guys (51 Knights, 30 Vikings/Norse/etc., 24 Pirates, 20 Spartans, 20 Trojans, 18 Religious Warriors, 17 Stabby Horse Guys like Lancers and Cavaliers, 12 Scots/Highlanders ... with 33 Warriors, 26 Raiders (often enough distinct from Pirates), 23 Soldiers, and the many other Fighting Type people, including of course the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Ragin’ Cajuns."