As a Houstonian, I was only vaguely aware that it was ever called the 1836. Then again, I usually don't remember it even exists. I'm not a big sports person.
Actually, is it just me, or is "1836" kind of a weird name for a sports team?
Kind of.
MLS teams love to try to copy Europe and Latin America for no other reason than the cool kids are doing it.
Why is the Salt Lake team called Real Salt Lake? Why is every new club using FC in their title? Why do a bunch of clubs have "United" in their title?
Houston in that case was trying to simply copy German clubs like FC Schalke 04 or Hannover 96. 1836 was kind of awkward, but then again, we have a pro football team called the 49ers and a Basketball team called the 76ers. It could have been shortened to Houston 36 or Houston 36ers or something like that.
They ended up scrapping that and calling themselves Houston Dynamo to copy teams like Dynamo Kiev or Dynamo St. Petersburg, as Dynamo was a Soviet era athletic club. It was just more poserish copying of Europe, but the brand worked, so it stuck.