Portland's professional women's soccer team, slated to begin play next spring, will be called the Portland Thorns.

The team unveiled the name and logo, featuring a red rose encircled by thorns, Thursday morning. The rose logo is the same as the one that adorns the Portland Timbers' red alternate jerseys.

"Portland Thorns quickly emerged as a natural choice that was appropriate for the city," Timbers owner Merritt Paulson said in a written statement. "And a nice side benefit of the name is the (Timbers) Army's 'P-T-F-C' chant doesn't need much re-scripting."

Portland is one of eight places -- Seattle, Boston, New Jersey, western New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Kansas City -- that have been selected to field teams in the new league.

The new league is expected to begin preseason play in March and regular season play in April, with many of the league's pool of players expected to come from the national teams of the United States, Canada and Mexico. There have been reports that the league will play a 22-game regular season -- three matches against each of the other seven teams in the league -- with an 11-game home schedule.

Here is a video from the team unveiling the logo.