Former Ohio State quarterback Tate Martell is transferring to Miami, he announced early Wednesday morning. That’s big news for the Canes for reasons described here by State of the U, our Miami blog, but let’s get to some other news at hand here.
Indeed, new Miami QB Tate Martell’s first name is actually ‘Tathan’
Yes, Tathan.
Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
On January 10, news broke that Martell’s name was in the NCAA’s transfer portal, which is not really a portal. A picture of that portal revealed Martell’s full first name is actually “Tathan,” not Tate:
Many folks on Ohio State Twitter and in our college football Slack room, myself included, had no idea that Tathan was his actual first name. It’s a pretty uncommon name, but I took the liberty of looking into the name’s origins.
He used to go by Tathan, in fact:
Before co-branding as Tate:
And finally emerging as just Tate.
As it turns out, one of the first Tathans was a transfer himself!
According to Wikipedia, Saint Tathan was a Celtic saint who TRANSFERRED FROM IRELAND TO WALES:
Saint Tathan (also known as Tatheus) is claimed to be a Celtic saint, who travelled from Ireland to Wales where he founded a Christian church. He is reckoned an early abbot of Caerwent and has dedications at Llanvaches, near Caerwent, also known as Llandathan, and at St Athan. He is said to have brought light to the heathens to undo the work of Satan.
(Joke credit all goes to Ryan Nanni here.)
Saint Tathan’s Wiki page also mentions how he “received a good education and devoted himself to spiritual matters” before making his trek to Britain. Just like Saint Tathan, college football Tathan has also spent a year in school at Ohio State, and has devoted himself to the Buckeyes’ offense. That’s a spiritual matter to OSU fans.
There’s not too much else out there on Tathan’s name origins, so hopefully Tate — I mean Tathan — can give us a bit more background.
According to BabyCenter.com, Tathan was the 19,092nd most popular baby name in 2018, so one of you other Tathans can weigh in as well.
The transfer news isn’t too much of a surprise, as five-star Justin Fields announced after the season that he’s headed to OSU. Martell, a former four-star recruit from the class of 2017, was the No. 2 dual-threat QB according to the 247Sports Composite. As for where Tathan might sail, I mean transfer to, there are certainly schools that could use his talent. Martell didn’t get much playing time behind J.T. Barrett and Dwayne Haskins the last two seasons, but transferring seems like a viable option to find more playing time.
See More:
