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Names -> Band Name Origins -> M, Page 3
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 M are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4
There are 4772 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| Modest Mouse | Isaac read it in a book which referred to the people where he's from as 'modest mouse-like people' | mickey | ||
| Modest Mouse | The Issaquah band's name is play on the name of 19th Century Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky is probably best known for his piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition" and it's famous Promenade theme; it is perhaps best known to modern audiences in it's orchestral form arranged by Ravel in 1918. | Marshall | ||
| Modest Mouse | As you can tell, Issac, the lead singer has a lisp. Speech Therapist tell their students to says "modest" and "mouse" together to work on losing the lisp. | Seamus | ||
| Modest Mouse | The took the name from a book where they described people as "modest, mouse like people" | John | ||
| Modest Mouse | Isaac Brock came up with the name "Modest Mouse" when he read a book in which the author described the working middle class as "modest, mouse-like people." | Wikipedia reader | ||
| MODUS | An operation; as in "to pull a modus" | Budslut | ||
| Mogwai | "Mogwai" is the name of an instrumental song by Nick Drake. I've been unable to pinpoint which album it was on, because Drake released only 3 albums before his death in 1974. Numerous compilations and unreleased works have been issued since, but where the song falls in his discography is anyone's best guess. | mangold | ||
| Mogwai | Mogwai is a character in the film Gremlins. Near the end Peltzer asks an Asian person what the name "Mogwai" means. She informs him that the word translates as "devil." Roll credits. | Fatman | ||
| Mogwai | Mogwai, I believe, is from the movie, "Gremlins". A mogwai is a gremlin when it is still cute and furry, like Gizmo, before they turn into the evil, and infinitely cooler "gremlins". | ezra agnew | ||
| Mogwai | In the film 'Gremlins' the furry animal is called a Mogwai. | Cameron | ||
| Molly Hatchet | Legend has it, that somewhere in the deep south during the 1800's, there was a woman who's first name was "Molly." She would take a lover, (for his riches), then simply dispose of him. You guessed it... with her "Hatchet". | Johnny Yorke | ||
| Molly Hatchet | In a mid-seventies interview, I heard a band member say that he was trying to remember the name of the famous ax-murderess, Lizzie Borden, and came up with "Molly Hatchet" | Johnny Oh! | ||
| Molly Hatchet | I've been a friend of the Hatchet band for many years. Before being named "Molly Hatchet" in 1975, the band was playing the J'ville club circuit. They changed their name so often that by the time they got back to playing the same club 6 weeks later, nobody knew who they were. One day during a rehearsal, it was decided theat they were going to pick a name and stick with it. Each member of the band wrote a name on a piece of paper and all of them were put in a hat. The plan was that the LAST name drawn would be the name of the band and that is what they would go with. The last name pulled out of the hat, chosen by Bobby Maddox - the bands lead singer, was "Molly Hatchet." The other guys didn't understand how he chose that name. Bobby explained about a tale he had once heard of "Hatchet Molly", a 17th century prostitute who beheaded her lovers. | Scott | ||
| Molly Hatchet | Derived from a woman in 17th-century Salem, Massachusetts who beheaded her lovers with an axe after sleeping with them. | jack | ||
| Molly Hatchet | Taken from the name of a Southern prostitute who mutilated her clients | Bobo | ||
| Mollys Yes | Based on a character in James Joyce's Ulysses, Mollys Yes is named after the book's Molly Bloom, who delivers a life-affirming monologue relating to love, sex, family and beauty, in which she uses the word "yes" over and over again to describe her feelings, hence "Molly's yes". "It's all the things about people that make them what they are," explains Ed (lead singer). Cautious not to imply an intellectual pretense, he adds, "We're smart guys but we're not that smart." Footnote: Shortly after signing a deal with Republic and releasing their first album "Wonderworld" the memebers of this outstanding band from Tulsa, Okla. have gone their seperate ways. | RLB | ||
| Moloko | From the name of the bar in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" | michael morrell | ||
| Moloko | The world Moloko actually be the word milk in russian but the lead singer of the bank Moloko got the name from the name of the drink & the bar whare they drink it in the book/film "A Clockwork Orange" | Gracie | ||
| Moloko | "Moloko" means "milk" in Russian. It is also the drink Alex and his droogs drink in the bar in the "Clockwork Orange". | Susanna VIljanen | ||
| Moloko | From the word for "milk" in Anthony Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange". The milk in the milk bar is doped with an opiate. | Push Latency | ||
| Moloko | your definition is wrong. moloko means MILK in russian language. | adam Pett | ||
| Moloko | Moloko isn't the name of the bar in A Clockwork Orange. The bar was called The Korova Milkbar, from the Russian word for "cow." Moloko is the Russian word for "milk," which they drink with drugs in it. | Steve | ||
| Moloko | Moloko is actually the Russian word for milk...hence it's usage as a DRINK name in A Clockwork Orange. | Toby | ||
| Moloko | Variant spelling of the greek insult "Malaka", also names after the character Moloko | Jay_the_Weird | ||
| Moloko | It is the DRINK that the boys are consuming in the milk bar in A Clockwork Orange. | Knowledge | ||
| Moloko | This isn't actually how the band got their name (it's ater the dink in Clockwork Orange)but I thought I might add that anyone who reads greek will know it alsomeans something rude.....hmmm, wonder if they knew THAt definition when they picked it? I doubt it, somehow. | Robb | ||
| Moloko | Named from the Anthony Burgess novel 'A Clockwork Orange' | Bobo | ||
| The Monkees | The band was created as sort of an answer to The Beatles in the 1960's. The name "Monkees" is a slight skewering of the word "monkeys", just as Beatles is a sendup of "beetles" | Brian | ||
| The Monotones | Acorrding to a band member, the name meant "one tone" and "we were so close, like one". | oldtimers | ||
| Monster Magnet | 1) Dave Wyndorf, lead man in Monster Magnet, collects sci-fi/Horror collectibles, one is a model called "The Monster Magnet" 2) The Mothers of Invention's first LP Freak Out has that title as its first track. | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Monster Magnet | The Monster Magnet was a toy made by Wham-o. | heavymetal | ||
| Montgomery Gentry | There are two guys in the band!! one of the dudes last name is MOntgomery and the other dudes last name is Gentry. | Red'Neck | ||
| The Moody Blues | Around 1962 Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder (2 of the original band members) formed The Krew Cats and spent the next year or so touring in Hamburg before disbanding and forming The Moody Blues 5, shortening it to The M & B 5 when Mitchell and Butlers Breweries agreed to sponsor the band. When this sponsorship did not materialise they changed the name to The Moody Blues in 1964. (Source: Official Moody Blues website www.moodyblues.co.uk) | SteveDTM | ||
| Mookie Blaycock | Original name of Pearl Jam - named after New Jersey Net whose number was 10 - the name of their first album. | Bobo | ||
| The Mooney Suzuki | The band was simply named after the last names of the two vocalists for the German band Can. Malcolm Mooney and Kenji "Damo" Suzuki were the singers of Can in the 1970's. | Cosmo | ||
| Moranbong Band | Kim Jong Un picked it after the Moranbong Guyok (District) of Pyongyang. All members hand picked. | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Morcheeba | M.O.R. "middle of the road" CHEEBA is a slang name for ganja (They all love to smoke) Read it in music magazine interview with Skye Edwards, the singer | steve | ||
| Mordus | The French word for "Bitten", sometimes associated with the bight of a Vampire. Mordus took this name based on the nocturnal nature of their sleepless bass player, who has been told, time after time, that he must be a Vampire. | Eric | ||
| Mother Love Bone | Andy Wood, the band's lead singer, while trying to come up with a band name wrote down a list of words that he liked and tried pairing them up. He ended up going with "Mother Love Bone" because it was just "three words that sound really good together." | Marissa | ||
| The Mothers Of Invention | Frank Zappa's band was originally called, simply, "The Mothers", but their record company, fearing negative connotations, insisted that they add "Of Invention" at the end. It derives, of course, from the expression "necessity is the mother of invention". | Mike | ||
| Mothers of Invention | In California at the time, accomplished guitarists were refered to as "motherf***ers" - abbreviated to "mothers" . Zappa wanted to call his band "The Mothers" but the record company feared the association with obscenity, so out of necessity Zappa added "of Invention". | Mark T | ||
| The Mothers of Invention | Frank Zappa's band was originally just "The Mothers." Chicken-hearted MGM Records made him add "...of Invention" fearing that just "Mothers" would invoke the dreaded 12-letter obscenity. | zap | ||
| Motley Crue | The members were sitting around in a bar trying to come up with a name and were talking about naming the band 'Christmas' when an older man walked in seen the 4 long haired rockers and said 'That's a motley looking crew'...from an interview with Vince Neil. | me | ||
| Motley Crue | I saw a show about the rise and fall of the band. They were sitting around trying to come up with a name for the band, when a friend came in and called them a motley crew. One of them was drinking a lowenbrau and thats where the double dots and the crue came from. | RobA | ||
| Motley Crue | Guitarist, Mick Mars was standing in a room with some other people, when a man walked in and said, "Well you look like a motley crue!" Mick then decided that Motley Crue would be a good band name, and if he was to have another band he would call it Motley Crue. (I read this in the Motley Crue autobiography, 'The Dirt'.) | Olivia | ||
| Motley Crue | Before the band got together, guitarist Mick Mars was hanging out with some friends. Someone walked into the room and said "well isn't this a motley lookin crew". Mick immediatly write it down and decided that if he ever had a band it would be called Motley Crue. | Natasha | ||
| Motley Crue | From a Vince interview on MTV. It was Vince's mom that saw the band members together and she said, "Well, aren't you a motley looking crew." I was not said by some friend or an old man. | druidicfear | ||
| Motley Crue | The band was sitting around trying to come up with a great band name (they were thinking of calling themselves "Christmas"), when a friend of the band walked in and said," Well, you look like a motley looking crew" so...hence, the name of the band. | wayne b | ||
| Motley Crue | From a Vince interview on MTV. It was Vince's mom that saw the band members together and she said, "Well, aren't you a motley looking crew." I was not said by some friend or an old man. | druidicfear | ||
| motley crue | In "THE DIRT" (The Motley Crue autobiography), Mick Mars came up with the name Motley Crue, meaning dressed in loud or rude clothing. | nikki nine | ||
| Motley Crue | When Nikki Sixx (bassist) originally formed the band that is Motley Crue, he felt the band name should already have a familiarity about it so that they could achieve interest & popularity among a fan base quite easily. In that mindset, he came close to calling the band 'Christmas', as having the word 'Christ' in there would, he thought, propel the band to stardom. Mick Mars (guitarist), however, thought the name a little too bizarre, and consequently presented the band name 'Motley Crew' to the band members. (As others have suggested, this name is believed to have been spawned from a humorous insult Mars had received in the past). After the band played with the spelling a little, replacing "crew" with "crue", the band went on to further the uniqueness of their name by adding the famous umlauts above the "o" of "Motley" and the "u" of "Crue". Vince Neil (vocals) suggests this action was a result of drinking Lowenbrau, a German beer that features such umlauts. Tommy Lee (drums) seems to support this notion. | J!M | ||
| Motorhead | Lemmy was also a speed user when the band was formed. The British slang for speed freak= Motorhead. "Lemmy" got his nickname during his roadie days. His most famous When he was low on money, he'd ask if you could "lemme a fiver (lend me $5.00). | John | ||
| Motorhead | "It was the last song Lemmy wrote when he was in Hawkwind. The song "Motorhead" is essentially a cover of Hawkwind's version. (According to the Motorhead website.)" The above post by Guillermo is correct. What they don't mention on their website is that Motorhead is a slang term used in Britian, mostly by biker types, to refer to an amphetamine user. Lemmy K. wrote at least one other song about his love of speed (Speedfreak). He also had to have all his teeth pulled at a rather young age, if you get my drift. | Valis | ||
| Motorhead | i read on a drug abuse website,that people who use the drug pcp are called motorheads i heard this is where lemmy the lead singer got the name | Mike Mashburn | ||
| Motorhead | "Motorhead" is British slang for a speed freak. Lemmy wrote a song by that title. Also, at least in America, a "motorhead" is an auto engine enthusiast, a car junkie (I once saw a newspaper article about Japanese motorheads who love US car models). | Thrasher | ||
| Motorhead | Lemmy wanted to call the band 'Bastard', but band members said they'd never get on tv with that name. Motorhead came from the old hawkwind song 'Motorhead' | fodder | ||
| Motorhead | It was the last song Lemmy wrote when he was in Hawkwind. The song "Motorhead" is essentially a cover of Hawkwind's version. (According to the Motorhead website.) | Guillermo | ||
| Motorhead | "Motorhead" is another term for a someone addicted to speed, or meth. | Kyle | ||
| Motorpsycho | The name is taken from the film by Russ Myers. | rafn | ||
| Mott the Hoople | They were named after an obscure novel by Willard Manus. The book has been out of print for years. | Tommy Wimmer | ||
| Mott The Hoople | Named After The Character Norman Mott In the Willard Manus novel " Mott The Hoople ". | Andy Boyd | ||
| Mott The Hoople | Named after the novel "Mott The Hoople" by William Manus. | dude | ||
| Motörhead | Lemmy Kilmister wanted to call the band "Bastard". But as a band with that name would never be successful, he changed the name into "Motörhead" which was the title of the last song he had written for Hawkwind. Its simply a slang term for "speed freak". | Ginger | ||
| The Mountain Goats | The name is taken from the Screamin' Jay Hawkins song "Yellow Coat", which contains the line "50 million bulldogs, 20 mountain goats, all gathered 'round at sundown to see my yellow coat." | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Mourning Widows | Guitarist/singer Nuno Bettencourt saw a painting in Portugal which left an impression, the name of which was "Mourning Widows". | fondu | ||
| The Move | Because all the members moved in from other groups, the idea being to create a Birmingham super-group. | Tim | ||
| MR Bungle | Mr. Bungle was actually the name of a character in a porno film General Patton had. | fig | ||
| Mr. Big | "Mr. Big" was chosen by Eric Martin, Billy Sheehan and company from a song done by the band "Free" (original band of later Bad Company frontman Paul Rogers) of the same name. The liner notes of the album where Mr. Big covers this song confirms this. | Danger-us | ||
| Mr. Bungle | Mr. Bungle was a character in the PeeWee Herman show. The band didn't realise there was a character called Mr. Bungle in the porn film "Sharon's Sex Party" until a member of Faith No More informed them. | Kelly | ||
| Mr. Bungle | Mr. Bungle is the name of a character in a childrens educational video about manners and hygiene. You can hear and excerpt from this on their self titled album. | Angelduster | ||
| Mr.Bungle | Named after the big freaky bear thing from rainbow | PeTeR | ||
| Mr.MacGregor | When some members of the group No No Bun Bun left, remaining members took on a new drummer and, wanting to keep the 'rascally rabbity' theme, yet empower themselves to a greater degree, they took on the name Mr. MacGregor from Beatrix Potter's 'Peter Rabbit' stories. | dkb | ||
| MSFunk | Many people think the name means "Ms. Funk" but actually the name came from a recording session the band did in Muscle Shoals, Alabama when, during one of the band's tracks, the recording engineer said "C'mon guys... give it some good old Muscle Shoals funk". The name stuck. | Jack Arnold | ||
| Muddy Gumbo | Regarding their moniker, the name Gumbo was on the group's original list. "Gumbo popped up early on but was scrapped. However Earl pointed out, that's our sound - so much of everything. But the name couldn't just be "Gumbo" and they felt it needed something else. One morning Scott woke up humming a Muddy Water's tune and was listening to a lot of Blues at the time and then the name just came to him -- Muddy Gumbo. They did a search and no one else had it, so the band voted to go with it because it rolls off the tongue, is memorable, and in tune with a great band name. | Rebel With A Cause | ||
| Muddy Waters | McKinley Morganfield earned his nickname from his grandfather. He called him Muddy Waters when his grandson was a child because Muddy loved to play in the waters a lot. | Kyle | ||
| Mudhoney | Like Faster Pussycat, named after one of exploitation king Russ Meyer's B-movies. | kookbox | ||
| 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 | ||
| Mudvayne | Lead vocalist, Chad Gray "Kud" is really into sci-fi, like "2001: A Space Oddity" and into aliens and the like. He had a dream where an alien told him the password to the next life was "Mudvayne." I met Kud and he told me this from his own mouth!!! | Neal | ||
| Mudvayne | The mud vein in a shrimp is the poop chute. Basically solid s***. It's the worst part of the shrimp, a normally good tasting dish. It has to be removed for the shrimp to taste good. Basically the band was calling themselves s***. | Montag | ||
| Mudvayne | The Drummer had been drumming since he was 8. He was always obsessed with hard rock and would try to play hard rock on his set and beat them so hard for so long that his viens grew and began to pop out. One day he was rolling around in mud, or having a mud fight with his friends from the band and his viens got covered in mud. Thus they thought it looked cool an the decided to call there band name that. But to be original they spelled vain wrong. | Wes | ||
| Mudvayne | They chose their name because it's medical slang for a collapsed vein. | Krystal | ||
| Mudvayne | Mudvayne got thier name from the waste canal on the dorsal side of a shrimp. | pat | ||
| MudVayne | Not sure about up north, but a Mud Vain has always been synonymous with a crawfish/shrimp intestine in Louisiana, which, since mud is their main diet staple, is full of mud. Quickly became slang for the human counterpart, as another widely accepted slang for human fecal matter is mud (as in "don't mud your undies, it's not a big deal"). MudVayne = crapper. I'm not sure who gave you that horseshit about someone having "big vains" and being "covered in mud", but trust me, this slang has been around forever. They're just embarassed about their stupid band name. Hope this helps! | Matthew LaGrange | ||
| Mudvayne | Actually they got the name from the vein that has to be removed from shrimp and crawfish when you eat them boiled (known as the mudvein). | Justin Williams | ||
| Mukala | This band is named after there lead singer Dan Mukala | Silas | ||
| Mule | A southern band originally called 'Rain' after The Beatles song in '68. Mid '68 named changed to Mule after having to haule their gear out of a flooded muddy area with a mule team after a gig. When playing blues called themselves 'The Raw Mule Blues Band' 'cause it sounded good. From a former band member now with some big named southern bands. | Seamus | ||
| Mulva | The band's name came from a Seinfeld episode. | Mark Enghout | ||
| Murder By Death | Taken from the 1976 movie of the same name starring Peter Sellers. | Aaron...that's right, Aaron | ||
| Murder Inc. | Name picked for a one-off band (one single, one album and one remix album total their recorded output) consisting of former members of Killing Joke, PiL, Ministry, and various other bands, from the term coined by the press to describe Jewish mobsters who formed a union to off their rivals. | kurt | ||
| Muse | The real reason: Matt Bellamy said in an interview that when thinking up a new name for Rocket Baby Dolls, he was studying the seven muses at university. | Liamy T. | ||
| Muse | Muse were called Rocket Baby Dolls due to a Japaneese porno movie Dom and Matt had seen before they played a gig once. But the reson they came about the name Muse was just before they were about to go on stage, they remembered someone said all these new band were like 'a falling muse', so they decided to call themselves Muse. | John wayne | ||
| Muse | matt described the energy the band got when they played as 'descending from the sky like a muse' and that's where they got their name | Newkette | ||
| Muse | As teenagers they went through lots of band names that were verging on the ridiculous. After hanging around with a local tramp/'musician' who noted a strange surge in the creativity of their hometown's youth ("like a muse passing through the town"), they decided to settle on Muse. (Sourced from various interviews with the band.) | Anamaria | ||
| Muse | Coz of some friends of the lead singer Matt Bellamy, they were three chicks who used to sing and Bellamy played the guitar with them. And for the muses, characters from Greek mithology. | Joaquin Leal | ||
| Muse | The bands name was originally something else but they changed it to muse as it was short and snappy and apparently matt belamy thought it would look good on posters as the lettering would be larger due to the shorter name than was previously used! | sam | ||
| Muse | The word Muse means "Deep thinking" or "Deep thought", I guess they got it from that mean. Maybe coz us English people are the only people that can "Deep think"??? | Elmo McNugget | ||
| Muse | After being The Gothic Plague and Baby Doll Rockets for a good few years the band had wanted a final name that suited them best. It is from my understanding that in their home town in the U.K. there was a battle of the bands competition at a local roller rink. As the band got on stage the director of the contest asked them what their band name was and they hadn't decided on a final one yet. After asking a second time lead vocalist Matt Bellamy said 'Muse'. Later while being interviewed Matt explains that the name just 'came to him' and it stuck. | Dianne | ||
| Muse | "We were called the Rocket Baby Dolls, a name I eventually got bored of. So i started looking in the dictionary for a suitable name for our music, and I came across MUSE, which meant inspiring, and poetic. We chose this. We then noticed that above Muse was Muscle, and below that was Museum, so we made a song called Muscle Museum." | Matt Bellamy | ||
| Mushroomhead | One of the band's close friends had a bowl cut, and they called him "mushroomhead." They thought it would be a good name for a band. | james | ||
| Mute Drivers | formed by 2 blokes who drove vans for Mute Records in the 1980s, hence.... | Agent Doug |
Entries starting with M are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4
New entries in this section are currently reviewed by Brian Kelly. Previous editors (if any) are listed on the editors page.
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