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Names -> Band Name Origins -> B, Page 2
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).
Latest Entries
Entries starting with B are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4 5
There are 4774 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| The Beatles | The Beatles early music was NOT all in 4/4, there were songs in 3/4, 12/8, 6/8 - long before they were famous. There was, howver, a back beat, so the beat was very important. All in all, clearly a play on words (typical of Lennon), and reference to the Crickets. The story about McCartney is made up (by McCartney). | Paulmarkj | ||
| The Beatles | Please, one of you, read "Great Partnerships: Lennon/McCartney." They all loved The Crickets, hence they wished to name it 'The Beetles' (everything else is right up to this point, guys) Lennon was a 'master' at wordplay. Richard (Ringo) and him thought up 'Beatles' as a play on the word beat and beetles. They didn't name it because songs keep a beat, or they played songs in 4/4. It's because they liked playing with words. Beatles only seemed natural as a tribute to the Crickets. Beetles could be the name for anything. It's the music that made them play on the word and choose Beatles. So, in a sense. You're right. But it wasn't really a collective idea. It was Lennon's playing with words that inspired the Beat as opposed to Beet. And it looks better. So, read up on it in Lennon/McCartney, or in the biography LENNON. | Thomas Wright | ||
| The Beatles | Everybody else is completely wrong. Paul was bitten by a beetle and almost died when he was 8, but was saved. Not a well known story, but I know it from an interview. | Suzanne | ||
| The Beatles | Actually, the "Flaming Pie" story was completely made up by Lennon. Even Paul said, if it was flaming anything else, it might be believable, but flaming pie was obviously John's sense of humour. Incidently, before "The Beatles", they've been "The Silver Beetles" and "Johnny and the Moon Dogs" | Gaurav Vaidya | ||
| The Beatles | Were billed as Silver Beetles until Jul 24, 1960 - first newspaper article "Beatnik Horror" Grambier Terrace apt. of Stuart and John. Liverpool University hired Beat Poet Royston Ellis to perform his "Beat to Rock" backed by the Silver Beetles at the Jacaranda. Royston stayed for one week at Stu and John's flat. He was the person who first turned the group onto drugs (via) vicks inhalers (benzedrine) and they stayed up all nights scheming. Royston Ellis is a very well known homosexual beat poet (he currently lives and writes in India). Ellis is also the inspiration for Paperback Writer. It was he that suggested to Lennon that Beetles should be spelled with an "A". On July 30, 1960 2 weeks before their first trip to Hamburg, they were finally and forever "The Beatles" | Richard Kolkman | ||
| The Beatles | Names the Beatles used: The Black Jacks - They wore black Leather Jackets (Teddy Boy image) The Quarrymen - Named after John's school (Quarry Rock) song, "Quarry Men, Strong Before Our Birth" Johnny and the Moondogs - for 1 audition, they failed and changed the name. The Beatals - Stu Sutcliffe's mimic of Buddy Holly's Crickets. "Beat" for beat music. Long John and the Silver Beetles - Brian cassar (Cass and the Cassanovas) suggested it John didn't like "Long John" because Long John Silver was a "rejected outright". So they used The Silver Beetles The Silver Beats - for 1 gig, they were to use the same name the following week for a gig. The show was cancelled. CHanged name again to The Silver Beatles. The Beatles a shortened form of The Silver Beatles. So, Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon are acredited with the name. John said in interviews that he came up with the name in a dream. "I had a vision when I was twelve, and I saw a man on a flaming pie, and he said You are Beatles with an 'a'," and we are. | The Beatles | ||
| The Beatles | I read in the Anthology book that they got it from "The Wild One" with Marlon Brando...there was a line in it that said "The Beetles missed ya Johnny" or something similar...they also liked the whole concept of double meanings (coming from the Crickets, which was an insect and a sport) and thought Beatles for the "beat" of the music and the insect. | Londey W. | ||
| The Beatles | The Beatles' early music was, supposedly, always in 4/4 time -- always the same "beat", hence Beatles. They were once known as the "Silver Beatles" while they were still club players in Liverpool. | Josh Levin | ||
| The Beatles | The Beatles came up with thier name as a double meaning. Using the idea that The Crickets had to have two meanings. Crickets- as insects and Cricket- as in the game you play. (The Crickets didnt realise this at first until The Beatles told Them) So the same with the Beatles. Beat- as in the beat they kept and Beatles- as in the bugs, Beetles. Although they eventually came up with the Beatles, they went through many names such as ' Long John and the Silver Beetles' or 'The Silver Beatles' and then eventually it became just 'The Beatles'. The Flaming Pie story was one of John's Creations, and it wasnt true. | Kim | ||
| The Beatles | Actually, if any of you had watched the Beatles' documentary movies, you'd know that John (I think that it was him, or possibly Paul) had a dream where God rode down on a flaming pie, and said "Let there be Beatles, with an A!" | DiscoDan | ||
| The Beatles | They choose the name "Silverbeetles" in honor of the Crickets, then shortened and changed the spelling to Beatles with the addition of Ringo and his style of playing. came from a biographical book on the Beatles I bought in the seventies. | brian travis | ||
| The Beatles | It was meant as a tribute to the Crickets. I guess "Beatles" was cooler than "The Beetles" | Brett Harrison | ||
| The Beatles | John derived the name as a play on Buddy Holly's Crickets, creatively changing "Beetles" to "Beatles" simply because beat is an element in music. The Beatles covered Buddy Holly's music wonderfully, e.g., the song "Words Of Love". | Major Bliss | ||
| Beatles | The real story behind this is that John wanted to name them the Beetles, but Paul didn't think that was cool enough. They considered that they would probably be experts in the highly explored field of what was known as Beat Music, and hence called themselves the Beatles after this passing phenomenon. | Bobo | ||
| The Beatles | They were originally The Quarrymen, then The Moondogs. One day, during a conversation, a friend of the band suggested that they needed a snappy name, like the Crickets (Buddy Holly's band). "How about the Beatles?" someone else asked. "No," the friend said. "You need something more like Long John and the Silver Beatles." To that, John Lennon replied that he absolutely refused to be "Long John" but that they could call themselves The Silver Beatles. So they re-named themselves The Silver Beatles. Later on, the word "Silver" was dropped and they became simply The Beatles. | brahman48 | ||
| The Beatles | They went with the insect thing as a dedication to the Crickets. They changed the spelling from "beetles" to "beatles" to represent the fact that you have to keep a "beat" throughout a song. | Susan | ||
| The Beau Brummells | Named after the 19th century gambler Beau Brummell, who was also mentioned in the Billy Joel song "Still Rock And Roll To Me". | band name | ||
| The Beau Brummels | Aside from the reference to the 19th century dandy, the band also knew alphabetically they would be filed right next to the Beatles in the record stores, increasing the visibility of their records. | Rufus | ||
| The Beautiful South | The Beautiful South were an English alternative rock group formed at the end of the 1980s by two former members of Hull group The Housemartins, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway. Heaton explained at the time that the name was partly a sarcastic reflection of his own dislike of southern England, and partly an attempt to force macho men to utter the word 'beautiful'. | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Beaver Brown Band | The band members were sitting around the store room of a hardware store trying to think up a name for their band.One of them looked up at a row of paint cans lined up on a shelf. He blurted out the name of the color on one can -Beaver Brown- | Dennis Stella | ||
| Beck | That is his real name - Beck Hansen | David Pratter | ||
| Bee Gees | Bee Gees: I saw them in 1965 on Australian TV which was well before Bill gates was around, hence the entry relating to Bill Gates etc IS INCORRECT. They started out called Brothers Gibb, then changed to BeeGees shortly afterwards. Bruce | bruce | ||
| Bee Gees | It is an acronym for Brothers Gibb, as mentioned. However, the reason they chose an acronym was because there were originally some members who weren't members of the Gibb family. (The BGs started out as a self-contained five-piece rock and roll band and only later evolved into a 3-piece singing group.) | Tim Horrigan | ||
| Bee Gees | The Ultimate Band List says the Bee Gees stood for Brothers Gibb. There is alot of speculation to what it really stood for. | Scott | ||
| Bee Gees | In addition to the information Bobo posted about the name's origin, Barry Gibb has said in interviews that it reflected the number of people they knew with the initials BG - Barry Gibb, their mother Barbara Gibb, etc. While they were performing as kids and before they settled on their permanent name, they used the names Wee Johnny Hays and the Blue Cats, the Rattlesnakes, and Barry and the Twins. See www.beegees-world.com for a more complete bio. Incidentally, after brother Maurice's death, Barry and Robin have decided to retire the Bee Gees name. | Martha Irvin | ||
| The Bee Gees | They were too many BG's in their lives: Barry Gibb (One of the band's members), Brothers Gibb (the abnd's members), Bill Gates (their first producer) so they agreed to use it for their name. Their original name was "The Rattlesnakes" | Diego | ||
| Bee-gees | Their name was not derived from their initals BG - as in Brothers Gibb - rather from the 2 friends who helped them out during their early career - namely Bill Goode and Bill Gates. | Bobo | ||
| The Bees | Well, they all like Sting and his name, Bees may stand for "Blokes, Easy and Excepted, Safe", the bass players' cousin can't talk and just says beeeeeeeeeeees all day long, the lead singer has been stung twice by a bee when he was little, the drummer keeps bees, all of their dad's names apart from one begin with a 'b', when one of them went to France for a holiday he was startled to discover a small Funk French band called the hucky-go-luckys (original name for the band) so after a small show he went up to the singer and asked him about it, the french singer could not speak english and apparently said something french which ended with "beeeeees" so he brought it with him. The band said they would take it but were still unsure so at their first actual gig in a small pub they were undecided and a drunk man in the crowd shouted "Let those Bees sing!" when it was too loud to hear them. This made a strong impression and they picked it. | Big T | ||
| Beg To Differ | This came out of discussions with fromer bandmates after their previous band had broken up. The singer in their former band mentioned that they would do nothing and only end up "doing lunch" (which, became the title of their widly successful follow-up album to 1993's smash, "Trinaglehead"). When they objected to this rather harsh statement, one of them said, "I beg to differ". The rest is wild success. | ivmike | ||
| Behemoth | It's creature from the Bible which can be killed only by it's creator. | Happy_Metal | ||
| Bell Biv DeVoe | Derivative of the last names of its members Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe. All were formerly with New Edition. | soul ii | ||
| Bellatrix | Named after a (astronomical) star | IJGrieve | ||
| BellBivDivoe | Michael Bell. Ronnie Bivens and Michael Divoe. | Celeste | ||
| Belle & Sebastian | The name comes from a French TV series of the 1960s called 'Belle et Sebastian', about the adventures of a young boy (Sebastian) and his pet snow white Pyrennean Mountain Dog (Belle). | blood_axe | ||
| Belle & Sebastian | The name comes from a French TV series of the 1960s called 'Belle et Sebastian', about the adventures of a young boy (Sebastian) and his pet snow white Pyrennean Mountain Dog (Belle). | blood_axe | ||
| Belle & Sebastion | Belle and Sebastion was this cartoon that used to be on TVontario about a boy and his dog who were homeless and lived in the Pyrenees mountains | andie | ||
| Belle and Sebastian | The band picked their name from a a black and white French-Canadian children's programme about a boy and his dog, this was live-action, not a cartoon. It was shown in the UK in the 70s, which is where I saw it as a kid | Matthew | ||
| Belle and Sebastian | The French cartoon was actually original a Hellishly sentimental 60's French kids drama series made in black and white. It was 2 decades later before the cartoon edition appear. I still remember it on BBC childrens hour when I was about 5; it made me vomit even then. | Mike Wallace | ||
| Belle And Sebastian | Actually it was a novel of the same name by Cecile Aubry, which later become a TV series. | SQR | ||
| Belle and Sebastian | Named after a French Cartoon, about a boy and his dog. The Cartoons were made about a book which went by the same name. | Gareth | ||
| Belle And Sebastian | This band from Glasgow, Scotland named themselves after a children's cartoon on French TV. | Bobo | ||
| Belly | Tanya Donelly, the band leader, stated that "I picked the name because it's one of my favorite words... it's 'pretty' and 'ugly' at the same time". | Muzza | ||
| Ben Folds Five | they were playing cards when ben, being dealt a lousy hand, threw his cards on the table saying, "and ben folds five", end of story. | jokeme | ||
| Ben Folds Five | Folds said the name sounded better than Ben Folds Three. | plasket | ||
| Ben Folds Five | There are only three members of this group, but lead singer Ben Folds created the name as a joke because audiences failed to notice the lack of guitar when they played. | ideal | ||
| The Benjamins | It DID come from the pro-money paean. However, a paean is, by DEFINITION (since defination does not exist), a song of joyful EXULTATION, since we are joyful rather than boastful or praise. Thank you. | Liz | ||
| The Benjamins | The group's name comes from Puff Daddy's pro-money paean. (A paean, by defination, is "a song of joyful praise or exultation".) | Alice | ||
| Beta Band | because lead singer stephen mason worked in a video production house in the duplication department and made beta video copies all day. he thought this would be his life's calling, but one night while working late he fell asleep waiting for a dub to finish and his cigarette caught a stack of beta tapes on fire. One of the volunteer firemen who came to his rescue was drummer robin jones. he was looking for a lead singer and they formed a band. When looking for a name they decided on the alpha band but thought that sounded pretentious so they randomly chose another greek letter--beta. thus the beta band. | rgreene | ||
| Better Than Ezra | They were the band called Ezra! One member died, so the new band was named Better Than Ezra. The singer turned down a full ride scholarship to Tulane law school to pursue this dream. | PFDRMONT | ||
| Better Than Ezra | Since there is no official story, we are left to guess. On p. 171 of a book called Earth Abides (George R. Stewart) there is an exact quote of "better than Ezra." The book is pretty rare, and is about the end of mankind after a plague. Perhaps they were fans of the book? | Ssammy | ||
| Better Than Ezra | When BTE started out in New Orleans, there was a local band here called Ezra. While BTE wasn't all that good yet, they were at least better than Ezra. | Paula | ||
| Better Than Ezra | When they played their first show, a band called Ezra went on before them. They didn't have a name yet so when asked what their band was called, they simply said "We're Better than Ezra". | YouEnjoyMyself | ||
| Better Than Ezra | When they first became known they would say openly that it was Better Than Ecstasy, but the record company tells them to answer anything but that now. Ezra is a nick for Ecstasy and they are "Better" | Devil Dog | ||
| Better Than Ezra | HUGE BTE fan here. I read (on their website, I'm pretty sure) that they changed their name to Better Than Ezra because they used to have a drummer named Ezra, and he quit, and once they replaced him, they became famous. | ellz | ||
| Better Than Ezra | Although they refuse to confirm it, the name allegedly came from page 96 of Earnest Hemingway's "A Movable Feast". | Brian Kelly | ||
| Better Than Ezra | There band used to compete with another local band called Ezra Pound. So as a joke they called themselves Better than "Ezra" as an insult to the other band and the name stuck. | Joseph | ||
| Better Than Ezra | They stopped telling interviewers how they chose the name years ago. But when they first started out, they explained freely. The name doesn't refer to the biblical Ezra, but rather, poet Ezra Pound, whose style and skills the members of the band generally disdained. They figured their stuff was better - hence the name. | TheDan | ||
| Better Than Ezra | Heard the band on LoveLines admit that another emerging group also named themselves Ezra. They thought the other group sucked so they renamed themselves Better Than Ezra to distinguish among club promoters. | Alex | ||
| Better Than Ezra | Actually, the dedication to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is "To Ezra Pound, il miglior fabbro" which is Italian for "the better craftsman." Hence, they are "Better Than Ezra." | Johan | ||
| Better Than Ezra | They picked this name because their ex- lead singer left the band because he thought they had no future. So they re-named the band Better Than Ezra. | Jackson | ||
| Better Than Ezra | The other explanation could be true, which would make this a major coincidence, but it is a fact that at least 2 members of the band (maybe all 3, I forget) used to be in another band called Ezra which was mostly unsuccessful. | mark | ||
| Better Than Ezra | TWO official alternative explanations - near the beginning of their career they followed a band named Ezra and thought they were better, and the lead singer was mad about not getting into Cornell University. Erza is the first name of a Cornell founder. | Bobo | ||
| Bettie Serveert | aAcording to the (official?) Bettie Serveert webpage, they named them after Bettie Stove, Dutch tennis player. Bettie Serveert, means Bettie on service. The ert sound is complete nonsense. | walvis | ||
| Bettie Serveert | Yes, it means "Bettie serves." Or "Bettie is serving." However, in this case, the best English translation would be, "Bettie will be your waitress today." The band walked into a restaurant, without a name, and after reading a chalkboard informing them that Bettie would be their waitress that fateful day, walked out with a name. | Roderick | ||
| Bettie Serveert | This Dutch band is named after Bettie Stove, a Dutch tennis star of the 70's. Bettie Serveert means "Bettie serves". | Bobo | ||
| Betty Serveert | Close on that comment, but "ert" was the noise the Dutch tennis player would make as she served. Hence | Joe | ||
| Between the Buried and Me | From a verse in the Counting Crows song "Ghost Train" from their debut album "August and Everything After": "Took the cannonball down to the ocean/Across the desert from the sea to shining sea/I rode a ladder that climbed across the nation/Fifty million feet of earth between the buried and me" Source: http://www.bandrescue.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=113&Itemid=1 | Max | ||
| Bidston Moss | They picked it out of a John Pilger book - it's a small town in England, and was mentioned in the book because of it's rubbish dump. Romantic, eh?! | Rick | ||
| Biffy Clyro | 'Biffy' means an out-door toilet and Clyro is a town in south Wales. | casey | ||
| Biffy Clyro | It has nothing to do with any Cliff Richard Byros!! Its an acronym for" Big Imagination For Feeling Young - 'Cos Life Young's Real Optimism". | Tomas | ||
| Biffy Clyro | When at school, the boys had a pen with Cliff Richard on it, so they called it 'Cliffy Biro'. One drunken night, one of them messed up his words and said 'Biffy Clyro'...and that name just stuck! | Laura G | ||
| Biffy Clyro | Cliff Richard was selling pens at a gig. They were called Cliffy's Biros. The band swapped it around to make Biffy Clyro. | Robert Haynes | ||
| Big Audio Dynamite (B.A.D.) | Big Audio Dynamite (B.A.D.) formed after Mick Jones and Joe Strummer dis-banded The Clash. Big Audio Dynamite is the name of Barney Rubble's band on the Flintstones. | Peter Tahmin | ||
| Big Bad Voodoo Daddy | This neo-swing band takes its name from what legendary bluesman Albert King wrote as an autograph for the band's leader, Scotty Morris... "To the big bad voodoo daddy." | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Big Bang | This Korean boy band's name is based on the Big Bang theory of origin. In their case, a street-originated flamboyant style of music. | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Big Black | In interviews, Steve Albini has said that "Big Black" simply referenced something big and black, an abstract kind of scary thing, as in the song "Steelworker" (big black thing crawlin' all over me) | mike | ||
| Big Black | Big Black was named after a short story written by Richard Wright entitled, "Big Black Good Man." | Roderick | ||
| Big Daddy Weave | Mike Weaver started the band. Being from Alabama, his nickname was Big Daddy (because he's a large man), so he named the group Big Daddy Weave (the 'r' got dropped for the flow of the name). | Nicholas Hutchind | ||
| Big Daddy Weave | According to Mike Weaver, Weaver explained that the name for the group came from some nicknames he had been given growing up. A guy at his church called him "Big Daddy," and in junior varsity football he was known as "Weave." "I played just enough JV football to realize that I definitely needed to be a musician," Weaver joked. "I would have done a better job as the mascot!" But when the school needed a name with which to identify the band for the event they played, Weaver jokingly told them to call the band "Big Daddy Weave and the Institution." The name stuck, and it was shortened to Big Daddy Weave when the band signed a contract with Nashville's Fervent Records. | wags | ||
| Big Drill Car | The band members have claimed in interviews that their name was inspired by the movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth". | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Big Star | The name of a supermarket chain in the Southern US | Bobo | ||
| Biggie | It was first Biggie Smalls because of his weight but then soon had to change it to the Notorious B.I.G. because there was already some rapper by the name of Biggie! | Lisa 'Le~Le' Stroud | ||
| Billy Idol | According to an interview with Martha Quinn (heard on the Don't Stop EP), he wanted to screw up the "punk trend" of intimidating monikers (Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, etc.), but according to Behind the Music, it was based on a teacher's livid scrawling of "WILLIAM IS IDLE" (lazy) on one of his school papers, and Billy himself thinking "It should be 'rock idol!'" (Real name: William Michael Albert Broad) | Switchie Dagger | ||
| Billy Pilgrim | Named after the lead character in Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse Five | Hayden | ||
| Billy Talent | They were originally called "Pezz" but changed to "Billy Talent" because another band already was called "Pezz". "Billy Talent" is the name of a character from the movie"Hardcore Logo". | Fishy | ||
| Billy Talent | From a book called "Hard Core Logo" | Billie | ||
| Billy Talent | When the lead singer applied for a children's singing competition as a teenager, the judges laughed at him and said his voice was awful. One particular judge said ' wow Billy, you've sure got some talent!' for a joke. He decided to name the band Billy Talent to prove the judges wrong. Plus he found it amusing that his name wasn't, isn't and never will be 'Billy' , it's actually Benjamin!!! | lil_pixie_girl | ||
| Billy Talent | Billy Tallent is a fictional charecter in Michael Turner's 1993 book 'Hard Core Logo". | Bogart | ||
| Biscuits For Queenie | This small Mortlake, Victoria, Australia band happened across their rather obscure name after one of their acquaintances started ranting "I will give biscuits for queenie" after a particularly eventful magic mushroom episode. The band performs mainly original songs and some covers; their originals include "Dodgy Kev", "Loud" and "Hippies and Bootscooters". Renowned for colourful performances at Mortlake's Buskers Festival, private parties and local fundraisers. | Julie Batten | ||
| Bjork | Bjork is Icelandic, and "bjork" is a birch tree in her native tongue. Many other Scandinavian girls are named Bjork-same meaning. | Nini | ||
| Björk | It means birch tree in Swedish(her parents were hippies). | ChaCha | ||
| Björk | Actually, Björk is from Iceland, not Sweden. And actually, Björk is not some weird hippy name, it's a pretty common name in Iceland. | Undetected | ||
| Björk | point of fact cha cha Björk is Icelandic not Swedish | dingo | ||
| Black 47 | "Black 47" refers to 1847 and the Irish "Potato Famine" | music fan | ||
| Black Box | Named after the famed "black box" that records airplane pilots for use after crashes. | soul ii | ||
| The Black Crowes | The band started out as Mr. Crowe's Garden after a story in a children's story book, when they signed to the record company, they wanted to change their name. Since they were known as the Crowes they decided to keep that part and just add Black in front. | joe | ||
| The Black Dahlia Murder | This band took its named from the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short, an actress who was also known as The Black Dahlia because she dressed in black a lot of times. | Kyle | ||
| Black Flag | A black flag is the traditional symbol of anarchy, and that image appealed to the nihilist members of the band. | Matt R | ||
| The Black Keys | In Akron, Ohio, the Keys' hometown, there was an old man who called people who weren't a little off "black keys". The boys liked this and started calling themselves The Black Keys. | Sunshine | ||
| Black Label Society | Zakk Wylde and Phil "Philth" Ondich, the founders of BLS, were originally going to name the band Hell's Kitchen. However, they were unable to get a trademark for that moniker. Being the big drinkers that they were, they thought of alcohol names and realize that Black Label usually means that's the best bottle when it comes to whisky. So, they became Black Label Society. | Deege |
Entries starting with B are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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