What is it with these names (Big 12 and Big Ten)

One of the strangest and for some people like myself very annoying names when it comes to college conferences are the Bigs. What I mean by that are the Big Ten and Big 12 so why I am so annoyed by these names, seems decent, right ?

Well the problem is that the Big 12 Conference has 10 members and the Big Ten conference has 12 members!
Of course nobody can predict how many members it will have in the long run but that is one thing one has to consider when forming something like that!

Of course now changing the name is somewhat problematic but it can really become confusing when you think about it, about the only useful way to know the difference between the two are the locations. You can't know the difference when it comes to members because those change all the time as well but thanks to the location you can be pretty sure which is which.

The Big 12 conference is located in Central US while the Big Ten is located in the Midwestern part of the States. Members of the Big 12 conference are located in Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The Big Ten (or is it 12, see how confusing this is?) is also the oldest college athletic conference in Division I. It has become a 12 member conference since Penn State joined in 1990 and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln joined in 2011.

Hopefully by the time the 2012 Big 12 basketball tournament bracket is out a new team will be added to one of those conferences so that it at least isn't vice versa when it comes to the number of members. If one of them had 11 members at least they could be easily distinguished from one another.