Making fun of music, one song at a time. Since the year 2000.
Check out the two amIright misheard lyrics books including one book devoted to misheard lyrics of the 1980s.
Names -> Band Name Origins -> S, Page 1
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 S are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
There are 4774 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| S Club 7 | It is pathetic that I actually know this, but the band were put together by the former manager of the Spice Girls; Simon Fuller. He was still really ticked off with them for sacking him as manager and he got this bunch of no hoper jerks together to steal thie "Pop Crown." He origionally wanted to call them Spice Club 7, but the label thought this was too obviously an attack at his former protagees, and so shortened it to S Club 7. True! | Angry Bob | ||
| S Club 7 | There's a dodgy chat line called 'S Club' all 7 of them met on that. Why else won't they say how they got the name? Honest, Bradley ( the stoner guy) told us when he was in NZ, trying to buy weed from us funny enough. | Lola | ||
| S Club 7 | The S stands for "Spastics" | Jordan Begley | ||
| S Club 7 | S is the 19th letter of the alphabet and ironically S Club 7's management is '19th Management' | Miss Cleo | ||
| S Club 7 | In a TV interview, the band once said the club was in there because they're a bit like a club, seven because there's seven of them, and the S is for absolutely nothing. | Mouse | ||
| S Club 7 | The S stands for super, it is their very own club of which there are seven members. | Fairy-Princess | ||
| S Club 7 | It is a little known but certainly true fact that S stands for Satanic, as most of the band are satanists, however they didn't want to frighten off their target audience (understandably) so they kept this under wraps and simply used the initial S. | Jennifer | ||
| S-Club 7 | The S in question stands for Simon's (as in Simon Fuller, former manager of the Spice Girls). Thus the group are called Simons Club of seven. (because there's seven of them suprisingly enough) | Niall | ||
| S-Club 7 | The 7 is because there are 7 members in the band HOWEVER the S DOES NOT STAND FOR ANYTHING. They were on live telly a few times and have said that the S stands for whatever you want it to as it has no meaning. I clearly remember seeing Tina, the black haired girl, state that the S can stand for whatever you feel like because it has no meaning. This was on SM | A | ||
| S.L.I.M. | SunLight In the Morning | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| S.P.O.T's | Actually, this MAYBE an urban legend, but I think this was an acronym for "Sex Pistol's On Tour". For about 30 days, the band used this sneaky little trick to get booked into clubs that wanted a real "punk" band, but were hesitant to let the "worst of the worse" trash their facilities. | princejellyfish | ||
| Sack Trick | Chris Dale, the band's frontman, said in an interview "A Sack Trick is a trick you do with your sack. It's what boys do in the bath by themselves." The band claim that before being a band, they were genital contortionists. | Mark Johnson | ||
| Sacral | Definitions of sacral: * adjective: of or relating to sacred rites Example: "Sacral laws" In Germanic languages, (such as Norwegian, which the band speaks) "sakral" means something holy or sacred. The band chose this name because it sounds sophisticated and also somewhat ominous with the religious connotations. The name is also alternately spelled "Sakraal" to sound more extreme, but only the true fans of the band may refer to them as Sakraal. | CODK | ||
| Sado-Nation | In 1978, Sado-Nation was formed by David Corboy in Portland, Oregon. The sadistic nature of the nation's leaders, and the people who let themselves be guided into a soul-less commercial society, was the inspiration for this new band's name. The music would reflect the disgust Corboy felt for these people and their greed driven culture. | Mish | ||
| Saint Etienne | From the French football club / town. | DDT | ||
| Salmon | In an interview a few years ago with their hometown paper The Gilroy Dispatch (in California) one member was quoted as saying when they were on the phone talking to one another instead of asking "ya have the weed" they would say "ya have the salmon" Hence the name Salmon | barry meyer | ||
| Salt N Pepa | Cheryl "Salt" James and Sandy "Pepa" Denton were working at a Sears store in Queens, New York, when their co-worker. Salt's boyfriend, Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor asked the duo to rap on a song he was producing for his audio production class at New York City's Center for Media Arts. The trio wrote an answer to Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick's "The Show," entitling it "The Show Stopper." The song was released as a single under the name Super Nature in the summer of 1985, and it became an underground hit, peaking at number 46 on the national R&B charts. Based on its success, the duo, who were now named Salt-n-Pepa after a line in "The Show Stopper," signed with the national indie label Next Plateau. Azor, who had become their manager, produced their 1986 debut "Hot, Cool & Vicious", which also featured DJ Pamela Green. He also took songwriting credit for the album, despite the duo's claims that they wrote many of its lyrics. They named themselves Salt N Pepa because they were as different from each other as Salt and Pepper, that's what they say at least. | Below Average Dave | ||
| SalubriouS | It means favourable to health and this band a absolutly far from healthy, The 2 S symbols are shaped like the ones from the KISS logo it also symbolises their singers facination with wwII memorabilia. | Joel Jones | ||
| Sam Phillips | Once upon a time, this scathing vixen was the innocent Christian superstar Leslie Phillips. Upon leaving the CCM scene, she abandoned her given name and changed it to her childhood nickname "Sam Phillips". She swears to this day, she didn't know there was another singer by that name. (The founder of Sun Records) | Jeremiah Witte | ||
| Samhain | It means "Lord of the Underworld". | jay | ||
| Samhain | After the Celtic holiday which Halloween is based on. | Vanya Mir | ||
| Samurai Sorcerers | 1) Loosely named based on the influence of a rock & roll concept of a high school garage band reminiscent of the Japanese anime Kaikan Phrase. 2) This garage band was mostly comprised of musicians of Asian descent. 3) Mostly AZN pop culture inspired. | Patrick Lew | ||
| Samus Aran | The name of the main character from the Metroid games. | La Choy | ||
| Saosin | Lead singer Anthony Green came up with it after a Chinese poem. It literally means "small heart" | varialFLIPsktr | ||
| Saraya | The band was named for surname of its lead singer Sandi, because she was the face of that band. | Joey F. | ||
| Sativa Luv Box | Ex-member of the band Kommunity FK named his new band after a certain part of his girlfriends anatomy | sanraab | ||
| Satyricon | It?s a old book that clears what wearwolfs are. | Baphomet | ||
| Savage Garden | Darren, being a huge fan of Anne Rice, chose to use the word's Lestadt used to descirbe a vampire's view of the world. Lestadt described the world as a Savage Garden, as it was beautiful, but also bitter and vengeful, which is also how Darren would describe the music he wanted to sing. | Lestadt's brat princess | ||
| Savage Garden | Sorry to say this to S.G's #1 fan, but I own both books and it is "vampire Lestat" which Savage Garden comes from, not "interview with a vampire". So everybody else is right after all! :) | Ben S | ||
| Savage Garden | From a page in the Anne Rice novel "The Vampire Leset" | Smelly Bum | ||
| Savage Garden | unlike sg's number one fan, i know the origins, as it is said in many of the interviews under which darren had to do when in the band, and i have read all of anne rice's novels, so i do know which one it came from and i can confirm it was from "The Vampire Lestat". Darren got so sick of saying the title and author in interviews, he beagan to just say it was from one of his favourite Anne Rice novels. | brat princess | ||
| Savage Garden | They got the name from the Anne Rice book 'Interview with a Vampire', not from 'Vampire Lestat', if you've read the book you'd know. | S.G's #1 fan | ||
| Savage Garden | The names is taken from the Vampyre Chronichels if Anne Rice. | Synne | ||
| Savage Garden | It's a line that Lestat says in one of Anne Rice's books. | Tygre Lily | ||
| Savage Garden | It comes from " The Vampire Lestat " by Anne Rice, and it is reffering to the world as a 'savage garden' because the world can be great and happy like a garden, but also evil and bitter hence the word 'savage' its an oxymoron (2 contradicting words) | noodles | ||
| Savage Garden | The lead singer Darren Hayes loved the Anne Rice vampire chronicals so much that he took their name from the vampire world in her book "The Vampire Lestat" | amber | ||
| Savatage | Savatage were named Avatar before, so Savatage is a fusion of Avatar, Sabotage and Savage... | ThrashTonight | ||
| Save Ferris | According to Wikipedia, the band was formed in 1995, and their name was taken from the movie. These guys were in grade school when the movie came out. | Voicedude | ||
| Save Ferris | It was not from Mathew Broderick's movie, for how could the band be around before the movie's release yet have the name. The joke in the movie was that it was a band name that they kept on saying. Stupid- heads! | Nanue Duchovny | ||
| Save Ferris | The name "Save Ferris" was NOT directly taken from the movie. One of the band members was writing an exam in high school, and SAVE FERRIS was written on the desk. He thought, "damn, that looks good written down," and they used it as their name. | Biscuit Dough Hands Man | ||
| Save Ferris | From numerous references in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which Matthew Broderick plays a very popular student who skips school. Kids and townsfolk think he is deathly ill, and paint Save Ferris on the water tower and other places. | SquattyD | ||
| Sawyer Brown | From Sawyer Brown Road in Nashville, Tennessee. | Hold Your Horses | ||
| Scatman John | he scats in his songs(apparently to right his stuttering problem). | mads. | ||
| Sceva | It came from the Bible and the lead guitarist Aaron is religious | Matthew | ||
| School of Seven Bells | A mythical South American pickpocket training academy | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Scissor Sisters | The truth is Scissor Sister a a lesbian sex act. Jake Shears (vocals) thought that would be a funny and random name. Also it's a sexual innuendo not every one would understand. | R. Mutt | ||
| Scissor Sisters | I think, as scissors cross over and they are men wearing women's clothing, so they are Scissor Sisters! | Mark And Pal | ||
| Scissor Sisters | Scissor Sisters is a euphemism for lesbians. | Charlie | ||
| Scorpions | Rudolf Shenker first named the band 'nameless'. but he foud it doesn't sounf right, so he decided to search a deadly name. than he thought about the scorpions, and their deadly sting, so the band changed their name to Scorpions | Andrei | ||
| Screamin' Louise | The story already on here is true but one of the name's is spelled wrong. It's Puppy O'Donnell. | saminrox | ||
| Screamin' Louise | The "Louise" part originated from the film "Gypsy" wherein the mother would tell her daughter to "..sing out Louise!" The 'screamin' part came from the fact that this was a female fronted band with two kick ass lead singers--Puppy O'Donell and Tami Terusa. The guitar player would tell them both to "...sing out Louise!" ( Also, both their middle name is Louise.) | saminrox | ||
| Screaming Pink Bunnies | when the band first came out there was an over load of bunnies in their home town. everyone was screaming. they added pink because they thought it was cool | spencer | ||
| Screaming Trees | Named for the race of tree-people from "Lord of the Rings". | Chad | ||
| Scritti Politti | The lead singer, Green Gartside is deep into philosophy and came across "scritti poligotti," political writings in Italian. He liked the sound of it, but changed it to Scritti Politti to sound more like "Tutti Fruitti." | Carmen Elliott | ||
| Scritti Politti | The name derives from "Scritti Politici", which is Italian for "Political Writing". Simple as that. | Heathcliff the Cat | ||
| The Searchers | From John Ford's 1956 classic western starring John Wayne, whose oft-repeated catch-phrase in this film, in turn, inspired Buddy Holly to write "That'll Be The Day". | paul | ||
| Seether | Named after the Veruca Salt hit, and the band is quite open about this fact. | The Skuz | ||
| Seether | Named after the Veruca Salt song of the same name. | Larry G | ||
| SeeYa | See You Always | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Self-Existence | The band was debating for a name after their previous name "AMC & DJX" started sounding to plain. AMC came up with Self-Sage while DJ X suggested that the word sage would cause some controversy due to its reference to the drug salvia. They eventually felt Self-Existence was a good name. They now shorten it to Self-X or Celph-X | Michael Callaway | ||
| Semisonic | Sat in a bar one night, a friend of Dan Wilson's turned to him and asked...."Why do they only play all this semi-sonic sh*t on the radio? The name was chosen then, due to a volotile situation over their former name 'Pleasure', which was used by a death metal group! | @shley | ||
| Senses Fail | The lead singer is a Taoist, where the idea is to be one with reality, and let "your senses fail". | Barry | ||
| Senses Fail | Buddy Nielsen thought of it one day as he was sitting in math class. It was better than their other possibilities when they were thinking of names. | |||
| Sensy's Wound | First off, this is one of the coolest groups ever! I heard the group grew up watching Karate Kid and really like the first part of part 2 when Miyagi made a fool of Cobra Kai's John Crease. Then it became an inside joke instead of sensei to say sensy. Maybe someone could try to find out more about the origin and joke to sensy. | b | ||
| Sepultura | Sepultura is the portuguese word for "Grave", or a place where people are to be buried. | DamRho | ||
| Sepultura | latin for grave, apparently cavalera saw it on a grave somwhere and adopted it | PeTeR | ||
| Sepultura | One of the founders (Max Cavalera) supposedly got the name from the song 'dancing on your grave' from Motörhead. As he didn't really know english he had to translate the songs word-by-word to brasilian portuguese. So he ended up with the translation of the word "grave" = "Sepultura" written on the cover of his schoolbooks. While contemplating a band name during class, "Sepultura" cought his eye..... | Sepulman | ||
| Sepultura | Meaning grave or tomb in Portugese, the Brazilian bands mother tongue. | ipper | ||
| Serial Joe | There was a guy named "Sergio" who lived down the street, and a little girl couldn't pronounce it... She called him "Serial Joe". | Kristin | ||
| The Sermon | Picked it from Jimmy Smith's (organ) then huge album The Sermon. The tune itself took up one entire side of an LP, some 20+ minutes and was cooking like crazy. | Bags | ||
| Set Your Goals | Taken from CIV's first album. | nunya | ||
| Seven Mary Three | "Seven-Mary-Three" was the radio handle for Ponch and John from C.H.I.P.S. | Tony Sculati | ||
| Seven Mary Three | On the 70's TV show "CHiPs", John's code name is seven mary three. Ponch was seven mary four. | Sammy | ||
| Sevendust | I'd imagine that it has to with the insecticide 'sevin dust', used to kill fire-ants. Fire-ants are a major pest in Georgia where the band was formed. | hoodwink 6 | ||
| Sevendust | They were originally called "Crawlspace" but their label suggested a name change, I forget why but I think it had something to do with another band having a similar name. They decided on Sevendust when throwing out random words. | Jon 7 | ||
| Sevendust | The band was originally named CrawlSpace but the name was already taken and copyrighted by another band. They labored hard over developing a different name, with their current moniker finally arriving as a result of a trip to the garage made one day by bassist Vinnie Hornsby, who stumbled across a container of Ortho's Sevin? Dust insecticide and was duly inspired. | Jody Roberts | ||
| Sevendust | Sevendust's original band name was Crawlspace. However. there was another band out there called Crawlspace, and they had a copyright. Since they had a show coming up soon, they needed a band name. While searching through a garage, a can of "Sevindust" was found, and when they changed the spelling a little bit, the name "Sevendust" was born. | Dave Bishop | ||
| Sevendust | Sevendust used to be called Crawlspace until another band called Crawlspace threatened legal action, so they had to change their name. One of the band members used to be an exterminator, and he used a chemical called Sevindust, so he brought the name up, and they changed "Sevin" to "Seven" because they thought 7 was a lucky number. | Chris | ||
| Sevendust | You are correct that they picked their name by throwing out random names, and that they used to be called Crawlspace. But Crawlspace was already taken by another band somewhere on the west coast, and they threatnened to sue Sevendust, so they changed it. | Richard McAleer | ||
| Sevendust | Sevendust is the brand name of a once popular fire ant poison. It comes in dust form and contains seven deadly poisons. | Alex Hall | ||
| The Sex Pistols | It was when Malcom McLaren wanted a band to promote his clothes from his and Vivienne Westwood's shop "sex". He wanted Sex cos it was the name of his shop and he also wanted it to be like 'Sexy Young Assassins' so he thought of Pistols as the assassin bit. So you get The Sex Pistols. This is true as it's on the Filth and the Fury (Pistol's DVD). | PunkRocker666 | ||
| Sex Pistols | Some of the band members (Jonnhy and Paul I think..) were working in a clothes store called "Sex", and the manager wanted to form a band with his employee and some of their friends for a publicity, so he took "Sex" for his store name, and "Pistols" because it sounded dangerous. | sha nana nana | ||
| Sex Pistols | Some of the band members (Jonnhy and Paul I think..) were working in a clothes store called "Sex", and the manager wanted to form a band with his employee and some of their friends for a publicity, so he took "Sex" for his store name, and "Pistols" because it sounded dangerous. | Heroin Remi | ||
| Sex Pistols | It comes from part of a plant. The 'sex organs' of a plant are called it's 'sex pistals'. Malcolm McLaren simply changed the spelling to 'Pistols' to make it more aggressive. | Klif Fuller | ||
| Sex Pistols | well, yes a couple members worked at a shop called 'sex'... the owner of the shop was also their manager and decided to call the band the sex pistols as a fallic reference... you can see this is the meaning if you think of their only studio album, 'never mind the bollocks, here's the sex pistols'... 'bollocks' meaning testicles, and 'pistols' refering to the... er... well, you get it now i hope | SoyRuca | ||
| Sex Pistols | From Sexe Pistil , Malcolm McLaren saw this plant at the Chelsea Flower Show. | Stig O'Hara | ||
| The Sex Pistols | The name came from a shirt that Bernie Rhodes designed and was sold in "Sex". The shirt refers to Steve 'Cutie' Jones and his 'sex pistol'. | Aimyla | ||
| Sex Pistols | malcom maclaren owned a sex shop in london called sex and saw lead singer johnny rotten(lydon) in the shop wearing a pink flyod t shirt sayin i hate above the name and maclom sprung on the idea that this kid had potenial to be a PUNK star as he had the image and that is how they got the first bit of SEX and the name PISTOLS as PISTOL can be slang word for a penis so u get SEX PISTOLS | sid vicious | ||
| Sex Pistols | Actually, they had a manager that named them. He said he wanted them to be dangerous and sexy or soemthing like that so he came up with "Sex Pistols". I heard of that on VH1 or whatever. | Zippy | ||
| SG Wannabe | Simon & Garfunkel Wannabe | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Sha Na Na | Band was the Columbia College Kingsmen but their first big agent, Betty Sperber, said "Kingsmen did Louie Louie, I'll call you the Put Ons." Desperate, band's creator, G Leonard said, "How about Sha Na Na-Na (3 Na's) the chorus from Get a Job?" A few weeks later The Bitter End's announcer shaved off the last Na. Later Leonard realized Get a Job's chorus had been Sha Da Da Da anyway. | Joel | ||
| The Shadows | One of the world's greatest guitar instrumental bands of the late 1950's and early 1960's had to change their name from The Drifters for obvious reasons. The new name was suggested by their original bassist, Jet Harris, because they stood in the shadow of the singer they were originally formed to back - Cliff Richard. This information was given to me by Jet Harris and backed up by other ex-band members. | Graham C. Marshall | ||
| The Shadows | Chosen by original bassist, Jet Harris, because they were always in the shadow of the singer they backed, Cliff Richard. | Graham | ||
| Shadows Over Silence | The band says that the meaning is to do with just standing there, as in there is only a silent shadow if you are not moving. | callum thomson | ||
| Shadows Over Silence | The silent shadow of a group of people is the one that never talks about things. This is known because their album "'Til Death Do Us Part" mentions the singer's girlfriend commiting suicide. | rachel | ||
| Shadows Over Silence | When you shadow somebody, it means you copy them. This means they are copying over silence (staying quiet). | trent | ||
| Shaggy | Saw this on MTV...his mom called him "Shaggy" when he was a child because his hair was, well...shaggy. He hated it until he visited London and found out what the word "shag" meant. | VooDooXII | ||
| Shaggy | Dispite the "He Liked to Shag" and the "Scooby Doo" stories, when he was younger, Shaggy had a hair cut that always seems messed up and screwy. After time went by with that haircut, he eventually picked up the name "Shaggy" because it was..... shaggy! | mandi | ||
| Shaggy | Mandi is wrong. Shaggy said in an interview that he never knew the word meant anything other than 'scruffy' until he came to the UK on tour. | viza | ||
| Shaggy | Supposedly when he was younger he looked like the guy from Scooby Doo and girls told him that's how he was "in bed" sometimes. | Lorie |
Entries starting with S are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
New entries in this section are currently reviewed by Brian Kelly. Previous editors (if any) are listed on the editors page.
Submissions
Got something that should be added to this page? Check out the submission form.