Names -> Band Name Origins -> Latest Entries
Do you know why a band picked out it's name? Feel free to let us know.
I can't verify all of these stories, so do take them with a grain of salt. I try and delete the ones that I know to be bogus, but I don't know the origins of every band name (and some bands intentionally tell different stories about picking their band name).
The 20 most recent entries are listed below. There are 4420 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| Job For A Cowboy | In Arizona (where the bands from) all the founding members fathers are farmers. Many times they would butcher cows for customers buying meat, and with the influence of death metal music and the daily life style, they became the death metal band they are now. | Julian | ||
| Carolina Liar | A correction to the previous entry: Chad Wolf is a native of Charleston, South Carolina (not North Carolina), and he lied to even get into auditions for bands. | Rocky | ||
| REO Speedwagon | R. E. Olds was born in the Geneva-on-the-Lake area of Northern Ohio. His company made the REO Speedwagon truck which was popular for hauling fire fighting equipment and other things during the late 40s to the early 60s. I saw an REO Speedwagon truck in the Canadian Automotive Museum in Oshawa, Ontario. A placard near the truck explained all this and it also said that the American band took its name from this vehicle. | MyWheels Have Turned Towards Oshawa | ||
| Mindless Self Indulgence | From the CD Mindless Self-Indulgence, a solo album by Jimmy Urine recorded in the mid-1990s. | Travis | ||
| Killswitch Engage | Taken directly from PluggedInOnline.com: "A kill switch is simply a button that shuts off machinery in the event of an emergency. In the context of this band, it referenced making a clean break from past musical endeavors. Or as bassist Mike D'Antonio put it, "basically shutting everything down that we once knew and starting over." " | Jonathan S. | ||
| Mudvayne | As mentioned in previous entries, a mudvayne is a waste canal in shrimp and other aquatic wildlife. I'd say that since the band is from Illinois rather than Louisiana, that they probably thought of catfish rather than shrimp. | AJW | ||
| Maroon 5 | Some of the band members attended Five Towns College in Long Island, though they did not graduate there. The school's "mascot" is The Sounds, and the colors are Maroon and white. They got "5" from the name of the school, and "Maroon" from the school's colors. | Val | ||
| Samus Aran | The name of the main character from the Metroid games. | La Choy | ||
| Bring Me The Horizon | They acquired their name based on a line taken from the film Pirates of the Caribbean, in which Captain Jack Sparrow shouts "Now... Bring me that horizon." They slightly altered the original line by simply changing 'that' to 'the' | Syn_Torn | ||
| Hondo Maclean | The Welsh hard rock band named themselves after a character from the 80s cartoon M.A.S.K. | Brian Kelly | ||
| Buckethead | When Brian was young he ate at a KFC and stuck the empty bucket on his head as a joke, and it stayed there afterwords which resulted in the literal naming of Buckethead. Taken from Buckethead's Secret Recipe DVD. | zxcymn | ||
| Dishwalla | A dishwalla is someone in India who sells black market electronics! Their first name was Life Talking. | Lisa | ||
| Blotto | The band was named after a dog with magical powers in Thorne Smith's 1931 novel "Nightlife of the Gods." | F Lee Harvey Blotto | ||
| DJ Fuse | DJ Fuse is the artist of H.A.B.B.O, promoting Habbo Hotel. DJ Fuse got it's name from Sulake (the creator of Habbo)'s FUSE technology, used in Habbo. | Jaz/Jarad | ||
| Freezepop | The name is taken from the brand name of popular fruit-flavored, colorful popsicles. | Edward | ||
| You-Know-Who Group | Actually the Four Seasons were the Wonder Who, not the You-Know-Who. The YKW Group was four guys in masks and capes who pretended to be British, which they were not. We almost booked them, but got the Guess Who by mistake. Some mistake!! True Story ! | Johnny B. | ||
| Spandau Ballet | "Dancing the Spandau Ballet" was WWII British soldiers slang for the dancing of soldiers mown down by the German Spandau machine gun (1200 rounds per minute) - the fastest machine gun of the time | Temac | ||
| Eisley | They named their band after the place "Mos Eisle" in the first "Star Wars" film. They cut it down to "Eisley" because they thought they would get into legal trouble by George Lucas. | DrTonberry | ||
| My Chemical Romance | Gerard and Mikey way were working at a book store and the manager brought British books in the back room and Mikey looked on the inside cover of a book the said 4 tales of Chemical Romance and he said it would be cool if you added My in front of Chemical Romance. | amanda day | ||
| Four Year Strong | Four Year Strong, all the band members were friends all throughout high school and that's how they got their name because they have four years of strong friendship | Mykel Banda |
New entries in this section are currently reviewed by Karen. Previous editors (if any) are listed on the editors page.
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