L.A. STORY ALL ABOUT NAME GAME.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

What's in a name?

That's an interesting topic again. I've been called a few to forget and am still scarred by ``The Head with Legs.''

Still, there's little doubt names are viewed by many with some kind of ultimate importance. At least those more specific than, Duuude! Brazilian soccer players. Actors. Hairstylists. Grandparents. Names have to be catchy, marketable. People get all worked up over these things. And sometimes invest millions.

Currently, they're all in a huff down in Anaheim because Arte Moreno is seriously considering changing the name of his Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels.

Now you can understand how the land of the Magic Kingdom is all worked up over this, what having spent 30 years to get the California Angels replaced with the Anaheim Angels in 1996.

They do, after all, play in the City of Anaheim in a stadium owned by the City of Anaheim.

Anaheim likes to think of itself as King of The O.C., despite the county seat being in Santa Ana and all the serious money down in Newport Beach with Peter Gallagher.

Yet the city - which met Friday with Angels president Dennis Kuhl over the proposed name change - is so troubled over the prospect, it has announced it will sue the club if it makes the switch to Los Angeles Angels.

It is so upset, it supposedly is willing to forego any opportunity Moreno has of helping bring in an NFL franchise to Anaheim just to maintain its city-naming right.

Now after you get off the floor, doubled up in laughter at the possibility that the NFL would return to Orange County before landing back in Los Angeles, think about this: The Angels change their look more often than a chameleon running through Dennis Rodman's hair.

They've changed their uniform seven times - and don't we miss that dashing periwinkle look? Changed their logo more times than Paris Hilton has boyfriends.

They've gone from the Los Angeles Angels to the California Angels to the Anaheim Angels, and now long again for the Los Angeles Angels, save the actually being in Los Angeles part.

They've played at Dodger Stadium, Anaheim Stadium, Edison Field and Angel Stadium.

They are an organization with a massive identity crisis.

This latest Los Angeles thing is part of Arte's desire to tap into the greater Los Angeles basin, poor Orange County no longer being a big enough pond for the man from Phoenix.

It's about marketing, not truth in advertising. It seems billboards in L.A. County proclaiming the Angels ``The A Team'' simply weren't enough.

Most names are fairly misrepresentative anyway. It's not the Carson Galaxy. It was never the Inglewood Lakers and Kings. The University of California at Los Angeles plays its football games in Pasadena. Before fleeing, the Los Angeles Rams played, er, in Anaheim.

The nicknames are all batty, too. It's the Lakers because they came from Minnesota and the land of 10,000 lakes. It's the Dodgers because they came from Brooklyn, where apparently it was once great sport to dodge trolley cars. It's the Clippers because they came from sailing-happy San Diego.

And it should be noted, it's the Angels because they came from the City of Angels.

It's the moniker Angels that could use some work. Sounds a little soft. They should modify their name after Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and call themselves ``The Killer Angels.'' That gets your attention.

This whole name-changing thing could really catch on. We could change Bruins to the more intimidating Grizzlies. The Greeks instead of the Trojans (they lost). Change the Lakers to the Strip Malls. Dodgers to the Freeways.

And we'll just keep going. Let's change them all. Take this newspaper, the Los Angeles Daily News. We could call it, oh, I don't know, Steve Dilbeck's Daily News. Or better yet, just The Dilbeck.

That would work, except I'm thinking about changing my name to F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's a marketing thing. Like Latrell Sprewell, I have a family to feed.

It's a wacky enough internationally blurred world, with American goods being made almost everywhere but the U.S., and the Boston Pops owning the Dodgers and the Kings owned by a Denver recluse.

It just seems extremely logical to actually use the name of the city your team plays in its name.

It is a slap in the face of Anaheim and Orange County that Arte wants to plant his flag along Wilshire Boulevard. He risks alienating some locals, who would probably be less upset if he wanted to name them the New York Angels.

If Arte pulls this off, who knows where it could end? We might actually get the Los Angeles Chargers while the team still plays in San Diego.

There is a name for all this, but for some reason, it escapes me.