DEAD Rabbits would be a silly gang name by today’s standards – but in 19th-century New York, the handle carried clout: A rabbit was a rowdy, and dead meant best.

The Dead Rabbits were a spinoff from a gang called the Roach Guards.

As the late Herbert Asbury wrote in “Gangs of New York,” the rabble-rousers got their name at a stormy meeting of the Roach Guards, when someone tossed a dead rabbit into the middle of the room.

“One of the squabbling factions accepted it as an omen and its members withdrew, forming an independent gang and calling themselves Dead Rabbits,” Asbury wrote.

Other gangs of the day – aside from the Rabbits’ rival Bowery Boys – included the Plug Uglies, the Shirt Tails, the Chichesters, the Kerryonians and the True Blue Americans.