Minor league team names have almost always been far crazier and more interesting than major league team names. In current times, it's a deliberate effort to be sillier. Teams like the Hartford Yard Goats (Rockies's Double-A) have popped up, even a collegiate summer league team just named themselves the Savannah Bananas. Teams need to do things like that to build a fan base in a system where the rosters are going to be almost entirely different from season to season.
Even in the distant past, minor league team names were pretty weird, though in the early days of minor league baseball, it probably wasn't as intentional.