Robert Tait's "An Illustrated History of Rugby League" mentions there were discussions about renaming Rugby League (presumably in the 1980s and 90s). It doesn't mention any of the suggestions.

If it were ever to change its name, to avoid the confusion with Union, what do you think could it/should it be called?

The best I can think of is Thirteens, which wouldn't really work when playing RL Sevens or RL Nines!

"RL"

A new name would need to reflect this brave new dawn of rugby league. So how about "Dickie and Nige's invite only exclusive gentleman's club"?

RUGBY

we are stupid for letting union take the name!

Rubbish. If Union want to monopolise the word Rugby, let them.

Ours is a distinct sport, about as far away from union as you can get, yet people STILL don't know the difference between the two sports, and invariably dismiss 'rugby' as being 'boring'. These people don't even know League exists!

I reckon we should go down the same route as American Football (NFL), Australian Rugby League (NRL), Aussie Rules (AFL) and what have you, and exclusively refer to ourselves as RFL.

TO cement this, it should incorporated into our competition names. RFL Engage Super League, RFL Challenge Cup etc.

Real Rugby?

errrrrrrrrrrr...............no!

how can we name oursleves after an organisation that many would say are corrupt and useless!

The RFL are a seperate entity to 'RL'

Someone posted up link to a US TV news report on the USA game against Jamaica - they were calling it Rugby. Great if RL takes off and the Yanks think of RL when they think of rugby, not so good if they end up totally confused by two sports having the same name.

Canadian Football, American Football, Gaelic Football, Australian Rules Football are a lot further away from RL than RU is. Rugby Union is to RL what Gaelic Football is Australian Rules Football. Also it could be argued that RL and RU are in fact the same sport but different codes the biggest distinctions between occurred relatively recently when limited tackles were introduced and there was less emphasis on competing for the ball.

Fact remains the majority of people do not find rugby boring they are just pretty much disinterested in it. Those that do follow a given code of rugby it is usually based on their geographical location and upbringing.

First step should be to get Sky to stop labelling our game as Super League and rename it to Rugby Super League.
Fact remains that there is a whole market out there who are willing to jump on the 'Rugby' bandwagon whenever the world cup or six nations come round who don't have any idea that league exists. A lot of them are interested in the concept of Rugby but when Union fails to deliver they lose any real interest for another 12 months. If we could get them to realise that there is a more dynamic and free flowing alternative we might start to get somewhere.

Im not sure that is the case. Modern RL is a vastly different game from modern RU. Some skills are interchangeable but that is the case for most contact sports.

Compare someone like Andrew Sheridan to Jamie Peacock as athletes and you can see the vast difference and both are nominally 'prop' forwards. Or the difference between James Roby and Steve Thompson though both are 'hookers'.

If we were to change names it would have to be 'Rugby' - absolutely nothing else, just 'Rugby'. We then have it as a registered trademark, any other sport ( union)would then be unable to shorten their name to just Rugby.
Incidentally, I would do something similar with the world cup - call it 'The World Cup'. As far as I know there isn't a competition with just this name at present.
It's all a bit radical and far thinking but it would make some serious headlines.

RL13.

Branded as XIII

RUGBY. and drop 'super' league. Its just lame, its one step away from 'uber mega rugby'.

Yes why not, worked for the IRA