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Pacific Historian
Whats the origion of the name of your favorite band? Heres Pt 1
Band Name Origins
10cc
The average man ejaculates around 10cc of sperm.
10,000 MANIACS
Inspired by an old horror movie called '2000 Maniacs'.
ABBA
An acronym for the first names of the band members: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Anderson and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad.
AC/DC
A band member saw AC/DC on a sewing machine and figured it has something to do with power. He was right, it means 'Alternating Current / Direct Current'. The band didn't realise it was also slang for bi-sexual, which caused a few awkward moments in their early days. A silly rumour claims the acronym 'Anti-Christ Devil's Children'.
AEROSMITH
It was evidently a word Joey Kramer wrote all over his notebooks in high school. Some think they were inspired by the 1925 book 'Arrowsmith' by Sinclair Lewis.
ART OF NOISE
Named after the 1913 manifesto called 'The Art of Noises' by Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo. Russolo made noise machines, wrote music for them, and also recorded sounds from the environment for musical pleasure.
B-52's
The beehive hairstyle popular in the 1950's was called a B-52. Also a type of U.S. Air Force bomber.
BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE
A combination of band members' last names and the trucker's magazine 'Overdrive'. They were originally called Brave Belt, then Bachman-Turner, then the final name.
BAD COMPANY
A 1972 movie starring Jeff Bridges.
BADFINGER
The working title of the Beatles song "A Little Help From My Friends".
BAUHAUS
Named after the style of graphic design and famous school of architecture
BAY CITY ROLLERS
They blindly stuck a pin on a map. It landed on Bay City, Michigan.
BEASTIE BOYS
'Beastie' is an acronym for 'Boys Entering Anarchistic States Toward Internal Excellence'.
BEATLES
A few stories floating around about this one. Stuart Sutcliffe came up with the Beetles in 1960, which was evidently a play on Buddy Holly's Crickets. They went by the Quarrymen and the Silver Beetles a while later, then shortened and mutated that to the Beatles. Lennon and Sutcliffe may have also been influenced by the film 'The Wild One', which featured a motorcycle gang called the Beetles. John Lennon is generally credited with combining Beetles and Beat to come up with the Beatles spelling. Lennon was also fond of saying he had a vision as a child of a flaming pie in the sky that said 'You are Beatles with an 'A'....
BEE GEES
Their name was not derived from 'Brothers Gibb' as most people assume. Two friends that helped them out early on were Bill Goode and a disc jockey named Bill Gates.... ('B. G.'s)
BIRTHDAY PARTY
The name of a play by Harold Pinter.
BIG T
He wasn't in a physical position to call himself "Small T".
BLACK CROWES
Originally named Uncle Crowe's Garden after a children's fairy tale.
BLACK FLAG
The flag flown by pirates and the brand name of a bug killer. When Adam Ant first played in California, Black Flag gave out buttons that read: 'Black Flag kills Ants'
BLACK SABBATH
Named after a 1963 horror movie starring Boris Karloff. They released an album as Earth before changing their name to Black Sabbath.
BLUE OYSTER CULT
A combination of a recipe the band's manager read in a book and the band's fascination with the occult. The name is also an anagram of 'Cully's Stout Beer'.
BONO
The singer with U2, Paul Hewson was inspired by a hearing aid store in Dublin, Ireland called 'Bono Vox'.
BOOKER T. THE M.G.'S
Booker T. led the band and M.G. stands for Memphis Group.
BOOMTOWN RATS
From a gang in Woody Guthrie's 'Bound for Glory' novel.
DAVID BOWIE
He took his last name from the Bowie knife (which he adored as a young lad). He didn't go by his given name 'David Jones' because he didn't want to be confused with Davy Jones of the Monkees.
BUZZCOCKS
From the term "bus ****". Men sometimes get an erection because of the vibrations in a heavy diesel engine in a bus or truck.
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
Inspired by a strange Uncle of Don Van Vliet's who would expose himself, squeeze his penis until the head turned purple, then comment about it looking "like a big ole' beef heart"
RAY CHARLES
His real name is Ray Charles Robinson, but he wanted no confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. Ray Charles didn't go blind until he was 7-years-old, and would ride his bicycle around his home town after going blind!
CHEAP TRICK
They asked a Ouiji board what they should call their band.
CHICAGO
Their first album was released as Chicago Transit Authority, then the city of Chicago sued them. Chicago Transit Authority is the name of Chicago's public transportation department.
CHUMBAWAMBA
Based on a band member's dream. He didn't know which door to use in a public toilet because the signs said 'Chumba' and 'Wamba' instead of 'Men' and 'Women'
CLASH
Taken from a newspaper headline describing 'A Clash With Police'
COCTEAU TWINS
They were named after an old Simple Minds song first called "Cocteau Twins", then renamed to "No Cure". All this was inspired by a set of twins that spoke a language they created that sounded like gibberish to everyone else.
ALICE COOPER
They were inspired by talking to a spirit named Alice Cooper using their Ouija Board.
ELVIS COSTELLO
He combined Elvis Presley and Lou Costello.
CRANBERRIES
The name started as Cranberries Saw Us (a play on 'Cranberry Sauce'). When Dolores O'Riordan joined, she recommended shortening the name.
CREEDANCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL
Name inspired by a logo on 'Olympia' beer cans. Their first label called them the Golliwogs (without the band's permission).
CROWDED HOUSE
The New Zealand/Australian trio chose this name from their cramped living conditions at 1902 N. Sycamore Street in Los Angeles while working on their debut album.
CURE
They were originally called Easy Cure.
DEEP PURPLE
Ritchie Blackmore's grandmother liked the Bing Crosby song "Deep Purple"
DEF LEPPARD
Inspired by a drawing Joe Elliot made of a leopard with no ears, a 'Deaf Leopard'.
DEPECHE MODE
It roughly translates to 'Fashion News', which was the name of a fashion magazine.
DEVO
Short for 'de-evolution', which the band think the human race is experiencing.
DICKIES
Named after the fashion item.
DIRE STRAITS
It describes the financial situation they were in when forming the band.
DOOBIE BROTHERS
Doobie is slang for marijuana joint. Their first name was Pud.
DOORS
From a William Blake quote 'If the doors of perception were to be cleansed evry thing would appear to man as it is, infinite'. The Doors were originally called the Psychedelic Rangers.
DURAN DURAN
A villan in the 1967 Jane Fonda movie 'Barbarella'.
DURUTTI COLUMN
A Spanish Civil War brigade led by libertarian anarchist Buenaventura Durruti.
BOB DYLAN
His real name Robert Zimmerman was too long and he was a big fan of Dylan Thomas.
EAGLES
Inspired by the Byrds, who were a big influence on the Eagles. Their first name was Teen King and the Emergencies.
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN
Echo was the name of the drum machine used in their early demos.
ELTON JOHN
His real name is Reginald Dwight. He took his stage name from two other British musicians, Elton Dean and John Baldry.
EURYTHMICS
a system of music instruction from the 1890s that emphasises physical response.
EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL
Inspired by an advertisement for a British clothing store that would sell you 'Everything but the Girl'. The implication was that everything was for sale except the sales girl.
FAITH NO MORE
The band was originally called Sharp Young Men, but changed to Faith No Man when their front man was Mike 'The Man' Morris. After he left, 'The Man' was no more, so they switched to Faith No More.
FALL
Inspired by a novel by Albert Camus.
FLEETWOOD MAC
Slight modification of Mick Fleetwood's name with the 'Mac' coming from John McVie.
FOREIGNER
British guitarist Mick Jones started the band in New York. Since he was a foreigner that became the name.
FUGS
When Norman Mailer first published 'The Naked And The Dead' in the U.S. he had to replace '****' with 'fug'
GANG OF FOUR
Group of old-style Chinese rulers who all ended up dead or in prison
GENESIS
The first book in the Bible. The name was part of their first album title From Genesis to Revelation which was suggested by their original manager Jonathan King.
GOLDEN EARRING
They were originally the Tornadoes, but there was a British band with that name. A movie called 'Golden Earrings' was the inspiration.
GRATEFUL DEAD
Refers to a series of Old English folk tales with the same basic theme. A traveler enters a village and finds the villagers desecrating, or refusing to bury the body of a dead man because he died owing creditors money. The traveler pays the dead man's debts and sees to a decent burial. Later in his travels the man is saved by a mysterious event, which is credited to the dead man's grateful spirit. Hence, the Grateful Dead. The band was originally the Warlocks, and picked Grateful Dead out of a dictionary after realising there was another band called the Warlocks.
GREEN DAY
If you smoked pot and goofed off all day, you just had a 'Green Day'.
GTO'S
An acronym for 'Girls Together Outrageously'. Frank Zappa produced one album by this motley bunch of hippie band groupies.
GUNS AND ROSES
From Axl Rose and Tracii Guns' names.
HEAVEN 17
A fictitious band mentioned in the movie 'A Clockwork Orange'
HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH
There was a kid in Darius Rucker's high school who looked like an owl. They called him Hootie. There was another kid with puffed up cheeks that they called Blowfish. Hootie is also the nickname of the legendary Kansas City jazz pianist Jay McShann.
HUSKER DU
An old boardgame, it's NORWEIGIAN or DANISH (not Swedish, as incorrectly reported) for 'Do you Remember?'.
Band Name Origins
10cc
The average man ejaculates around 10cc of sperm.
10,000 MANIACS
Inspired by an old horror movie called '2000 Maniacs'.
ABBA
An acronym for the first names of the band members: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Anderson and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad.
AC/DC
A band member saw AC/DC on a sewing machine and figured it has something to do with power. He was right, it means 'Alternating Current / Direct Current'. The band didn't realise it was also slang for bi-sexual, which caused a few awkward moments in their early days. A silly rumour claims the acronym 'Anti-Christ Devil's Children'.
AEROSMITH
It was evidently a word Joey Kramer wrote all over his notebooks in high school. Some think they were inspired by the 1925 book 'Arrowsmith' by Sinclair Lewis.
ART OF NOISE
Named after the 1913 manifesto called 'The Art of Noises' by Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo. Russolo made noise machines, wrote music for them, and also recorded sounds from the environment for musical pleasure.
B-52's
The beehive hairstyle popular in the 1950's was called a B-52. Also a type of U.S. Air Force bomber.
BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE
A combination of band members' last names and the trucker's magazine 'Overdrive'. They were originally called Brave Belt, then Bachman-Turner, then the final name.
BAD COMPANY
A 1972 movie starring Jeff Bridges.
BADFINGER
The working title of the Beatles song "A Little Help From My Friends".
BAUHAUS
Named after the style of graphic design and famous school of architecture
BAY CITY ROLLERS
They blindly stuck a pin on a map. It landed on Bay City, Michigan.
BEASTIE BOYS
'Beastie' is an acronym for 'Boys Entering Anarchistic States Toward Internal Excellence'.
BEATLES
A few stories floating around about this one. Stuart Sutcliffe came up with the Beetles in 1960, which was evidently a play on Buddy Holly's Crickets. They went by the Quarrymen and the Silver Beetles a while later, then shortened and mutated that to the Beatles. Lennon and Sutcliffe may have also been influenced by the film 'The Wild One', which featured a motorcycle gang called the Beetles. John Lennon is generally credited with combining Beetles and Beat to come up with the Beatles spelling. Lennon was also fond of saying he had a vision as a child of a flaming pie in the sky that said 'You are Beatles with an 'A'....
BEE GEES
Their name was not derived from 'Brothers Gibb' as most people assume. Two friends that helped them out early on were Bill Goode and a disc jockey named Bill Gates.... ('B. G.'s)
BIRTHDAY PARTY
The name of a play by Harold Pinter.
BIG T
He wasn't in a physical position to call himself "Small T".
BLACK CROWES
Originally named Uncle Crowe's Garden after a children's fairy tale.
BLACK FLAG
The flag flown by pirates and the brand name of a bug killer. When Adam Ant first played in California, Black Flag gave out buttons that read: 'Black Flag kills Ants'
BLACK SABBATH
Named after a 1963 horror movie starring Boris Karloff. They released an album as Earth before changing their name to Black Sabbath.
BLUE OYSTER CULT
A combination of a recipe the band's manager read in a book and the band's fascination with the occult. The name is also an anagram of 'Cully's Stout Beer'.
BONO
The singer with U2, Paul Hewson was inspired by a hearing aid store in Dublin, Ireland called 'Bono Vox'.
BOOKER T. THE M.G.'S
Booker T. led the band and M.G. stands for Memphis Group.
BOOMTOWN RATS
From a gang in Woody Guthrie's 'Bound for Glory' novel.
DAVID BOWIE
He took his last name from the Bowie knife (which he adored as a young lad). He didn't go by his given name 'David Jones' because he didn't want to be confused with Davy Jones of the Monkees.
BUZZCOCKS
From the term "bus ****". Men sometimes get an erection because of the vibrations in a heavy diesel engine in a bus or truck.
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
Inspired by a strange Uncle of Don Van Vliet's who would expose himself, squeeze his penis until the head turned purple, then comment about it looking "like a big ole' beef heart"
RAY CHARLES
His real name is Ray Charles Robinson, but he wanted no confusion with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. Ray Charles didn't go blind until he was 7-years-old, and would ride his bicycle around his home town after going blind!
CHEAP TRICK
They asked a Ouiji board what they should call their band.
CHICAGO
Their first album was released as Chicago Transit Authority, then the city of Chicago sued them. Chicago Transit Authority is the name of Chicago's public transportation department.
CHUMBAWAMBA
Based on a band member's dream. He didn't know which door to use in a public toilet because the signs said 'Chumba' and 'Wamba' instead of 'Men' and 'Women'
CLASH
Taken from a newspaper headline describing 'A Clash With Police'
COCTEAU TWINS
They were named after an old Simple Minds song first called "Cocteau Twins", then renamed to "No Cure". All this was inspired by a set of twins that spoke a language they created that sounded like gibberish to everyone else.
ALICE COOPER
They were inspired by talking to a spirit named Alice Cooper using their Ouija Board.
ELVIS COSTELLO
He combined Elvis Presley and Lou Costello.
CRANBERRIES
The name started as Cranberries Saw Us (a play on 'Cranberry Sauce'). When Dolores O'Riordan joined, she recommended shortening the name.
CREEDANCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL
Name inspired by a logo on 'Olympia' beer cans. Their first label called them the Golliwogs (without the band's permission).
CROWDED HOUSE
The New Zealand/Australian trio chose this name from their cramped living conditions at 1902 N. Sycamore Street in Los Angeles while working on their debut album.
CURE
They were originally called Easy Cure.
DEEP PURPLE
Ritchie Blackmore's grandmother liked the Bing Crosby song "Deep Purple"
DEF LEPPARD
Inspired by a drawing Joe Elliot made of a leopard with no ears, a 'Deaf Leopard'.
DEPECHE MODE
It roughly translates to 'Fashion News', which was the name of a fashion magazine.
DEVO
Short for 'de-evolution', which the band think the human race is experiencing.
DICKIES
Named after the fashion item.
DIRE STRAITS
It describes the financial situation they were in when forming the band.
DOOBIE BROTHERS
Doobie is slang for marijuana joint. Their first name was Pud.
DOORS
From a William Blake quote 'If the doors of perception were to be cleansed evry thing would appear to man as it is, infinite'. The Doors were originally called the Psychedelic Rangers.
DURAN DURAN
A villan in the 1967 Jane Fonda movie 'Barbarella'.
DURUTTI COLUMN
A Spanish Civil War brigade led by libertarian anarchist Buenaventura Durruti.
BOB DYLAN
His real name Robert Zimmerman was too long and he was a big fan of Dylan Thomas.
EAGLES
Inspired by the Byrds, who were a big influence on the Eagles. Their first name was Teen King and the Emergencies.
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN
Echo was the name of the drum machine used in their early demos.
ELTON JOHN
His real name is Reginald Dwight. He took his stage name from two other British musicians, Elton Dean and John Baldry.
EURYTHMICS
a system of music instruction from the 1890s that emphasises physical response.
EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL
Inspired by an advertisement for a British clothing store that would sell you 'Everything but the Girl'. The implication was that everything was for sale except the sales girl.
FAITH NO MORE
The band was originally called Sharp Young Men, but changed to Faith No Man when their front man was Mike 'The Man' Morris. After he left, 'The Man' was no more, so they switched to Faith No More.
FALL
Inspired by a novel by Albert Camus.
FLEETWOOD MAC
Slight modification of Mick Fleetwood's name with the 'Mac' coming from John McVie.
FOREIGNER
British guitarist Mick Jones started the band in New York. Since he was a foreigner that became the name.
FUGS
When Norman Mailer first published 'The Naked And The Dead' in the U.S. he had to replace '****' with 'fug'
GANG OF FOUR
Group of old-style Chinese rulers who all ended up dead or in prison
GENESIS
The first book in the Bible. The name was part of their first album title From Genesis to Revelation which was suggested by their original manager Jonathan King.
GOLDEN EARRING
They were originally the Tornadoes, but there was a British band with that name. A movie called 'Golden Earrings' was the inspiration.
GRATEFUL DEAD
Refers to a series of Old English folk tales with the same basic theme. A traveler enters a village and finds the villagers desecrating, or refusing to bury the body of a dead man because he died owing creditors money. The traveler pays the dead man's debts and sees to a decent burial. Later in his travels the man is saved by a mysterious event, which is credited to the dead man's grateful spirit. Hence, the Grateful Dead. The band was originally the Warlocks, and picked Grateful Dead out of a dictionary after realising there was another band called the Warlocks.
GREEN DAY
If you smoked pot and goofed off all day, you just had a 'Green Day'.
GTO'S
An acronym for 'Girls Together Outrageously'. Frank Zappa produced one album by this motley bunch of hippie band groupies.
GUNS AND ROSES
From Axl Rose and Tracii Guns' names.
HEAVEN 17
A fictitious band mentioned in the movie 'A Clockwork Orange'
HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH
There was a kid in Darius Rucker's high school who looked like an owl. They called him Hootie. There was another kid with puffed up cheeks that they called Blowfish. Hootie is also the nickname of the legendary Kansas City jazz pianist Jay McShann.
HUSKER DU
An old boardgame, it's NORWEIGIAN or DANISH (not Swedish, as incorrectly reported) for 'Do you Remember?'.