Rock Band Etymologies
Ever wonder how a rock band or musician comes up with a name? Here's how.
A-Ha
-Origin: comes from a title member Pal Waaktaar thought about giving to a song. Morten Harket was looking through Waaktaar's notebook and came across the name "a-ha". He liked it and said "that's a great name". It worked because it's short, easy to say and unusual.
-Origin: acronym from the initials of the first names of the members: Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad
-Origin: Malolm and Angus Young developed the idea after seeing "AC/DC" on an electric sewing machine.
-Origin: Joey Kramer came up with the idea Aero. One day, he and a friend were throwing out words to go at the end of Aero and his friend said "Smith". So it stuck.
-Origin: All Americans and Rejects were merged
-Origin: was a band before one of it's members started a solo career under the same name. Was the name of a spirit members of the band came into contact with using a ouija board
-Origin: from the name of a beehive hairstyle. Also named for the famed Boeing B-52 Stratofortress
-Origin: taken from the idea of Buddy Holly and the Crickets
-Origin: took the name from 1963 horror movie Black Sabbath
-Origin: Took the name from Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception
-Origin: came from Deaf Leopard, while coming up with ideas for imaginary bands in his English class. The spelling was modified slightly to make the band seem less like a punk rock band.
-Origin: played at Birmingham's Barberella's nightclub. Took the name from the villain in the sci-fi cult movie Barberella, Dr. Durand-Durand
-Origin: named after E-Street in Belmar, New Jersey, because the band would practice at the E-Street home of pianist David Sancious' mother.
-Origin: slang term for spending a day smoking marijuana. Billie Joe Armstrong wrote a song called Green Day about his first experience with the drug and it soon replaced Sweet Children as the band's name.
-Origin: Steve Harris named the band after the iron maiden torture device as shown in the film The Man in the Iron Mask.
-Origin: taken from the Bob Dylan song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"
-Origin: taken from Queen's Radio Ga-Ga
-Origin: named after Leonard Skinner, a gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville, Florida. He was notorious for strictly enforcing the school's rules about boys having long hair.
-Origin: comes from the fact that front man Adam Levine attended Five Towns College and one of the school colors was maroon and there are 5 guys in the band
-Origin: While Dave Mustaine was traveling back to his home in the Bay Area after getting kicked out of former band Metallica, he would write lyrics on the back of a handbill to pass the time. The handbill itself quoted "The arsenal of megadeath can't be rid no matter what the peace treaties come to," which inspired him to use Megdeath as his band name. He dropped the A in Megadeth after finding out that "The Megadeaths" was the former band name for Pink Floyd.
-Origin: came from a member of a band called White Horse saying they looked like a "motley looking crew".
-Origin: taken from the song Motorhead by Hawkwind
-Origin: from the lyrics of a song called Panic by Name Taken, a California-based indie punk rock band
-Origin: changed the name from Paris to Poison to sound more glam
-Origin: Freddie Mercury thought the name sounded very regal. Strong and universal name.
-Origin: Paul McCartney used the alias Paul Ramon when booking hotel rooms. So the band decided to use the last name Ramone even though it's not their given name
-Origin: from the Muddy Waters song Mannish Boy. Which The Rolling Stones later did their version of. And according to Wikipedia, it says The Rolling Stones name came from the song Rollin' Stone by Muddy Waters.
-Origin: evolved from their prior name The Strand. Their other name was QT and the Sex Pistols, so they shortened it to just The Sex Pistols
-Origin: was originally Silver Star, but on Valentine's Day in 1973 it changed to Twisted Sister.
-Origin: type of spy plane from the US.
-Origin: last name of the lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen and guitarist Alex Van Halen.
-Origin: originally known as The White Snake Band
-Origin: comes from the love of alcohol that Keith Richards has.
-Origin: Originally called The Detours, then changed it to The Who after a suggestion by Townshend's friend Richard Barnes.
-Origin: grew out of Keith Relf's The Metropolitan Blues Quartet.
