• 146 team names

90s Trivia Team Names

Press Pick 5 new team names for dial-up, pagers and slap bracelets, then copy or print the list.

90s Trivia Team Names

All 146
  1. Blink Tag TeamOne line of code made text flash on and off, and home page builders could not resist it.
  2. 24 ExposuresA short roll of 35 mm film gave you 24 pictures and a full roll 36, with no preview of any.
  3. Get Off the Phone, I'm OnlineDial-up used the house phone line, so nobody could make a call while you were connected.
  4. Virtual Pet SittersEgg-shaped keychain pets were a late 1990s craze that needed feeding during class. Some schools banned them.
  5. Negatives in the EnvelopePrints came back with strips of negatives tucked in the flap, in case you wanted copies.

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All 146 team names

Dial-up and the early web 23

  • 56k Modems Dial-up topped out at 56 kilobits a second, and that speed only arrived in the late 1990s.
  • Blink Tag Team One line of code made text flash on and off, and home page builders could not resist it.
  • Busy Signal What callers heard all evening once the household got online.
  • Connection Lost Somebody picked up the kitchen phone.
  • Cyber Everything Cyber shared the word of the year vote for 1994, then got stuck on the front of every noun.
  • Dial-Up Connection Going online meant phoning your provider and waiting through the noise.
  • Dial-Up Thinkers We get there. It takes a minute and it makes a noise.
  • Dot-Com Bubble The rush into internet stocks that built through the late 1990s and hit its peak on March 10, 2000.
  • Free Trial Disc Coasters Internet providers mailed out free trial discs, and plenty ended up under a coffee mug.
  • Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Answers A chain email, passed along by three relatives before it reached you.
  • Get Off the Phone, I'm Online Dial-up used the house phone line, so nobody could make a call while you were connected.
  • Information Superhighway The American Dialect Society's word of the year for 1993.
  • Loading, Please Wait A photo arrived one strip at a time, working its way down the screen.
  • Mom Needs the Phone The sentence that ended most dial-up sessions.
  • Netiquette Net plus etiquette: the early web's word for good manners online.
  • Screech, Hiss, Connected The modem handshake, as near as letters can get to it.
  • Sign Our Guestbook Early home pages asked visitors to leave a note, the way a seaside guesthouse does.
  • Snail Mail The name email users gave to letters with stamps on.
  • Surfing the Web The decade's verb for clicking from page to page.
  • Under Construction The sign on every personal home page, usually for years.
  • Webring Neighbors A webring joined small sites on one subject in a loop, each linking to the next.
  • World Wide Wait The old joke about what WWW stood for on a slow line.
  • You Are Visitor 000042 Home pages showed a hit counter, a row of digits that ticked up with every visit.

Pagers and phones 15

  • 07734 Turn it upside down and the digits read hello, the old calculator trick. The host has to read out five digits.
  • Beep Me Pagers were called beepers for the noise they made. You got the beep, then went to find a phone.
  • Beeper Keepers Clipped to a belt and checked every four minutes.
  • Call Waiting The click on the line that meant somebody else was trying to get through.
  • Calling Collect A call paid for by the person who answers, if they accept the charges.
  • Leave a Message After the Beep The answering machine's one instruction.
  • Pager Code 143 On a numeric pager, 143 meant I love you: the letters in each word, counted.
  • Pager Turners A page-turner is a book you cannot put down. This one clips to a belt.
  • Payphone Quarters Kept in a pocket for the ride home.
  • Phone Book Booster Seats The thick directory doubled as a lift for the smallest person at dinner.
  • Screening Our Calls Letting the machine pick up, to hear who it is first.
  • See-Through Phone The clear plastic bedroom phone that showed off its own wiring.
  • Star Six Nine Dialing *69 told you the number of whoever had just called, and could ring them back.
  • Stretching the Phone Cord The kitchen phone had a coiled cord, and privacy was as far as it would reach.
  • Three-Way Calling Two friends on one call, and the engine of middle school diplomacy.

Floppy disks and beige PCs 18

  • 1.44 Megabytes What a high-density floppy disk held. One photo from a modern phone would not fit.
  • Abort, Retry, Fail The DOS error for an empty disk drive. None of the three choices ever seemed to help.
  • Beige Boxes Beige was the standard color of a desktop PC until the late 1990s, when a translucent one turned up.
  • The Blinking Cursor A prompt, waiting for a command you cannot remember.
  • C Colon Backslash The DOS prompt, where every session on an early 1990s PC began.
  • CD-ROM Cup Holders The old help-desk joke about the caller whose cup holder had snapped off.
  • Clip Art Gallery Stock cartoons pasted into every school report and yard sale flyer.
  • Computer Lab Tuesdays One room, thirty machines, one visit a week.
  • Degauss Button It made a big glass monitor thunk and wobble its picture to clear stray magnetism.
  • Disk 3 of 7 Big programs came on a stack of floppies, fed in one at a time and in the right order.
  • Hunt and Peck Typists Two fingers, eyes on the keys, and faster than the typing teacher liked to admit.
  • Mouse Ball Cleaners A mouse rolled on a rubber ball that picked up desk fluff and had to be cleaned.
  • Not Actually Floppy A 3.5-inch disk had a hard plastic shell. The floppy part was the thin disk inside.
  • The Save Icons Many programs still use a little floppy disk as the picture for save.
  • Screensaver Mode Screensavers were made to stop a still image burning into a glass monitor.
  • Shareware Samplers Shareware let you try the first part of a program free and pay for the rest.
  • Turbo Button The button on a beige PC case. Oddly, its job was to slow the machine down for older games.
  • Write-Protect Tabs The sliding tab in the corner of a floppy that stopped anyone saving over it.

Y2K and the millennium 9

  • 01/01/00 The date that worried the programmers. Read it out as oh one, oh one, oh oh.
  • All Four Digits The fix for Y2K, in three words.
  • Class of '99 The last graduating class with a nineteen in front.
  • Millennium Bug Spray Millennium bug was another name for the Y2K problem, and the word of the year for 1997.
  • Nothing Happened at Midnight Few major failures occurred, which the people who fixed the code count as a win.
  • Stockpiled for Y2K Canned food and bottled water in the basement, just in case.
  • Technically It Started in 2001 The third millennium began on January 1, 2001. Someone at every party said so.
  • Two-Digit Years Programs stored 1985 as 85, so the year 2000 looked the same as 1900.
  • Y2K Help Desk On call on New Year's Eve 1999, just in case. Y2K was that year's word of the year.

90s slang 22

  • All That and a Bag of Chips All that meant impressive. The chips were extra.
  • As If Two words of pure disbelief. Useful when the scores are read out.
  • Been There, Done That The decade's way of saying nothing impresses you.
  • Booyah A shout for a right answer.
  • Chillin' Like Villains Relaxing, in rhyme.
  • Da Bomb High praise at the time. It has not been since.
  • Don't Go There A warning that a subject is closed, such as last week's score.
  • Hecka Smart Hecka was the playground-safe way to say very.
  • Let's Bounce Let's leave. Save it for after the last round.
  • Mad Props Props is short for proper respect, and mad means a lot of it.
  • My Bad A short apology, handy after talking the table out of the right answer.
  • No Duh What you say when the answer was obvious. It rarely is.
  • Oh Snap A mild gasp, for a burn or a surprise.
  • Peace Out Goodbye, with two fingers up.
  • Phat Chance Fat chance, respelled. Phat was a compliment.
  • Psych Said straight after a false statement, to take it back. Spellings varied.
  • Raise the Roof Palms up, pushing at the ceiling. Do it when your name is read out.
  • So Not Ready So was the decade's intensifier: so over it, so not going, so not ready.
  • Take a Chill Pill Advice for the teammate who argues with the host.
  • Talk to the Hand A 1990s way of saying you are not listening, with a palm held up like a stop sign.
  • Totally Prepared. Not. Not, tacked on the end to reverse a sentence, was the word of the year for 1992.
  • Yeah, Whatever The decade's all-purpose shrug.

Hair, clothes and bedrooms 19

  • A Bowl Cut Above A cut above, from the haircut that looks as if a mixing bowl was the guide.
  • Backwards Caps, Forward Thinkers Brim to the back, on everyone from skaters to substitute teachers.
  • Baggy Jeans, Big Dreams Denim wide enough to hide a skateboard.
  • Bucket Hat Brigade A soft hat with a brim that slopes all the way around.
  • Center Part Curtains The curtains haircut: long on the crown, parted down the middle, flopping over both eyes.
  • Flannel Panel A plaid flannel shirt, open over a T-shirt or tied around the waist.
  • Fuzzy Velvet Posters Black velvet outlines, colored in with markers over a long weekend.
  • Glow-in-the-Dark Stars Stuck to a bedroom ceiling in no known constellation.
  • Hair Mascara Streaks A wand of wash-out color, for one bright streak at the front.
  • Hair Wrap Threads Embroidery thread wound tightly around one lock of hair, usually on vacation.
  • Jelly Sandal Blisters See-through plastic shoes, with the price paid at the heel.
  • Light-Up Sneakers Red lights in the heel that flashed with every step.
  • Neon Windbreakers A swishing nylon jacket in three colors that did not match.
  • Overall Winners Denim overalls, worn with one strap hanging for reasons nobody can now explain. The name is a prediction.
  • Scrunch Time Crunch time, with a scrunchie: the fabric-covered hair tie, patented in 1987 and hard to avoid for a decade.
  • Slap Bracelets A strip of springy steel in a fabric sleeve that curls around the wrist when slapped on. An early 1990s fad.
  • Stretch Comb Headbands A stretchy plastic comb worn as a headband, which left neat stripes in your hair.
  • Tattoo Chokers The stretchy black plastic necklace that looked like lace.
  • Tear-Away Pants Warm-up pants with snaps down both legs, borrowed from the basketball bench.

School, mall and car 12

  • Book Fair Day Folding metal shelves in the library and five dollars to spend.
  • Gym Class Parachute Thirty kids, one giant nylon parachute, no clear rules.
  • Hand-Crank Windows Rolling down the car window was a literal instruction.
  • Have a Good Summer What everyone wrote in your yearbook, close friends included.
  • Inline Skaters Wheels in a single row, wrist guards optional, stopping uncertain.
  • Laser Background Portraits School picture day offered a backdrop of neon laser beams, for a little extra.
  • Overhead Projectionists A teacher, a transparency and a marker that was nearly dry.
  • Pretzel Stand Regulars Saturday afternoon at the mall, one soft pretzel between three.
  • Printed Directions Turn-by-turn pages from the home printer, useless after one missed exit.
  • Rectangle Pizza Friday The cafeteria's one reliable crowd-pleaser.
  • Road Atlas Navigators The front-seat passenger read the map. Wrong turns were their fault.
  • TV Cart Day The television rolled in on a tall cart, and the lesson plan was a video.

Consoles, cards and crazes 15

  • Bead Lizard Keychains Plastic pony beads and cord, woven into a gecko for a backpack zipper.
  • Blow on the Cartridge The folk cure for a game that would not start. Whether it helped is still argued about.
  • Demo Disc Dwellers A free disc of game samples, played more than some full games.
  • Due Back Monday A rented game had to be finished by Sunday night.
  • Holographic Card Hunters One foil card to a pack, if you were lucky.
  • Laser Tag Birthday A dark room, a glowing vest and a score sheet printed at the end.
  • Link Cable Traders Two handhelds joined by a cable, which was the only way to trade.
  • Milk Cap Slammers Stack the cardboard caps, drop a heavy slammer, keep the ones that land face up. The craze peaked in the mid-1990s.
  • Pass the Controller One game, four kids, turns that were never quite even.
  • Password Save Scribblers Before memory cards, a game handed you a long password to write down. One wrong letter lost everything.
  • Save Point Seekers Many games saved only at certain spots, so dinner had to wait.
  • Someone Else's Save File Rented games came with a stranger's progress already on them.
  • Strategy Guide Borrowers A thick paperback of maps and secrets, passed around the class until the cover fell off.
  • Trading Card Binder Nine pockets to a page, and nobody was allowed to touch the shiny ones.
  • Virtual Pet Sitters Egg-shaped keychain pets were a late 1990s craze that needed feeding during class. Some schools banned them.

CD players and film cameras 13

  • 24 Exposures A short roll of 35 mm film gave you 24 pictures and a full roll 36, with no preview of any.
  • Camcorder Dads A video camera on one shoulder at every recital, with running commentary.
  • CD Tower Topplers A tall rack of jewel cases beside the stereo, one bump from disaster.
  • Double Prints A second set of every photo, to give away.
  • Hidden Track Waiters Some albums hid a bonus song after minutes of silence at the end of the last track.
  • Hold It Level Until skip protection arrived around 1995, a portable CD player had to be carried like a bowl of soup.
  • Negatives in the Envelope Prints came back with strips of negatives tucked in the flap, in case you wanted copies.
  • One-Hour Photo Drop off the film, walk around the store, collect the prints.
  • Red Eyes in Every Photo A flash close to the lens made everybody's pupils glow red.
  • Six-Disc Changer A stereo that held six CDs at once and took its time moving between them.
  • Skips at Track Three One scratch, always in the same place.
  • Thumb Over the Lens Discovered a week later, when the prints came back.
  • Wind the Film A thumb wheel clicked the next frame into place before every shot.

How it works

These 90s trivia team names come from the decade's everyday life: the modem screech, a pager on the belt, homework on a floppy disk. All 146 are clean, and no show, band or toy brand is named. Press Pick 5 new team names; to keep any your table remembers, take the others away with × and press again.

Read the full guide

One phone line explains a whole group

The All team names menu under the button holds nine groups. Dial-up and the early web is the largest, with 23 names. The one few people guess is School, mall and car, with 12 and no gadget in sight. Most dial-up jokes come from one fact: the modem used the house phone line, so nobody could make a call while you were online. Hence Get Off the Phone, I'm Online, Busy Signal and Mom Needs the Phone. Dial-up also topped out at 56 kilobits a second, hence World Wide Wait.

The decade's words of the year are in the deck

The American Dialect Society has named a word of the year for every year since 1990, and its 1990s winners read like a quiz round. Not, tacked on to reverse a sentence, won for 1992. Information superhighway took 1993, cyber shared 1994, millennium bug won 1997 and Y2K closed the decade. All five are names here, from Totally Prepared. Not. to Y2K Help Desk.

  • Check the ages at the table. 90s slang needs no tech memory, while Turbo Button and Degauss Button only land with someone who owned a beige PC.
  • 07734 and 01/01/00 are jokes for the answer sheet. If your host reads the scores out, pick a name that says itself, such as Pager Turners.
  • Born after 2000? Read the line under each name. It says what a write-protect tab or a milk cap slammer was.

Questions and answers

Is it 90s or 90's trivia team names?

Both get typed, and both mean this list. Most style guides prefer 90s, or '90s with the apostrophe in front, where it stands for the missing 19. No host will mark you down for either. Write your team name the way you gave it at sign-up.

Did the turbo button make a PC faster?

No. In practice it slowed the machine down so that older software ran at the right speed. Turbo Button is in Floppy disks and beige PCs, beside Abort, Retry, Fail, the DOS error for a drive with no disk in it.

What were pager codes?

A numeric pager showed only digits, so people built a shorthand from them. 143 meant I love you, from the number of letters in each word. 07734 is the old calculator trick: upside down, it reads hello. Both are in Pagers and phones, with the working shown.

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