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Names -> Band Name Origins -> T, 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 T are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3
There are 4774 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| Thirty Seconds to Mars | According to the Wikipedia page, the band took their name from a rare manuscript titled Argus Apocraphex | dayna | ||
| Thirtysix Crazyfists | They were all huge fans of Bruce Lee, and so named the band after a Bruce Lee Movie. | Dave Massey | ||
| This Mortal Coil | The band was temporary formed by a record company (4AD Records) who needed some musicians to record a song called "You and your sister". This mortal coil actually means "This Downwards spiral" The name "This Mortal Coil" is drawn from Hamlet and is a poetic expression referring to the earthly condition. | Flo de Haan | ||
| Thomas Dolby | Thomas Dolby is his actual name, he invented the Dolby noise reduction process in the early 80s and it still bears his name. | monk | ||
| Thomas Dolby | Thomas Robertson as a kid was obsessed with sound technology, and was given the nickname Dolby (Dolby Digital) | newwavefan | ||
| Thompson Twins | Started in 77. The Thompson Twins were a septet until frontman Tom Bailey bought off the others, knocking it down to 3. They got their name from his favorite French comic strip adventures of Tin Tin in which there was two bungling detectives named Thompson and Thompson. | Hiro | ||
| Thompson Twins | Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond) are two bumbling detectives who, although unrelated, look like twins with the only discernible difference being the shape of their moustaches. They provide much of the comic relief throughout the series, being afflicted with chronic spoonerism and shown to be thoroughly incompetent. The detectives were in part based on Hergé & TinTin's father and uncle, identical twins who wore matching bowlers. | Mickey D. | ||
| Thompson Twins | These are indeed named after the black-suited pair from Hergé's Tintin books, though there are three in the band, none called Thompson. | fooooo | ||
| Thompson Twins | They took their name from the characters of the Tin-Tin comic books. | Celeste | ||
| Thompson Twins | 80's 3-piece band fronted by Alana, who took their name from the two English men in Bowler Hats in the Tin Tin comic books. | Treeman | ||
| Thompson Twins | The name of a pair of detectives in the old Tintin comics. | Brian Kelly | ||
| Thousand Foot Krutch | the christian band got their name from people that hang on to a grudge for a long time and it turns into a "thousand foot krutch" | steve mcmahan | ||
| Thousand Foot Krutch | According to founder Trevor McNevan on the band's website, it is in reference to "the unseen crutch that helps you out of difficult situations" (presumably Christ, since they are a Christian band). Crutch is spelled with a "K" because it looks better. | the speter | ||
| Three 6 Mafia | They changed their name from "Triple 6 Mafia", which was what they called themselves while they were still underground and non-mainstream and they got this name from 6-6-6, to "Three 6 Mafia". And in some songs there are even lyrics about the Devil and 666. | Dunc Nasty | ||
| Three 6 Mafia | The group came up with the name as a reference to the "number of the beast" 666 in keeping with their image as a horrorcore rap collective. | Joe Barbaro | ||
| Three Days Grace | You usually have 3 days to do something, f/e if you get your bills on the 20th, you have until the 23rd to get them payed. But also: what if you had to change your life in just three days? | Alien Freak | ||
| Three Days Grace | Their bass player heard of a ''three days grace'' period and thought the name fit. | Jared | ||
| Three Days Grace | It represents a sense of urgency. If you had an amount of time to do something, like turn your life around, three days is a good amount of time. | Lillie | ||
| Three Days Grace | Some of the members were in business class and read in the book "Three Days Grace", maybe pertaining to a grace period. But they never specified. | ELi Komton | ||
| Three Dog Night | 10 years ago in an interview, lead singer Chuck Negron divulged that the band name referred to what they'd call a night where they'd need inspiration for writing song lyrics. When they couldn't think of lyrics for songs, they would smoke three joints (or dogs as they used to say in the Bronx, where the band is from) and inspiration would hit them. | microgal | ||
| Three Dog Night | In Alaska, depending on the cold, some sledders have their dogs sleep next to them for extra warmth. Like a three dog night could mean it was really, really cold. | casie | ||
| Three Dog Night | Based on an old Eskimo custom of using live dogs as blankets. If the temperatures were below zero, that would be classified as "a three dog night". | oldstyle | ||
| Three dog Night | In Australia depending on how cold the night would get would determine how many dogs they slept with. A real cold nuight would be a three dog night. | D. Stiefel | ||
| Three Dog Night | Among Australian aborigines, an especially cold night was a "three dog night" because you needed to sleep with three dogs to stay warm. | Equus | ||
| Three Dog Night | An Australian bushman's expression which describes a cold night in terms of the number of drover's dogs he needed to gather to himself for warmth when camping out under the stars on long sheep or cattle drives. A One Dog Night was cold... a Two Dog Night was very cold... and a Three Dog Night was freezing. | Wild With Words | ||
| Three Dog Night | One of the band member's girlfriends had heard the name in a documentary about Australia. In the outback, on cold nights, people would need the warmth of three dogs, thus the name. | Zo | ||
| Three Dog Night | In the Australian outback (desert, savannah), it gets very cold. Locals use the term "a three-dog night" to describe a night so cold, you have to sleep with three dogs to stay warm. You could extrapolate this has something to do with sleeping with several rock groupies in the 1960s and 1970s, but that may be a stretch. | Matt In Clearwater | ||
| Three Dog Night | The three lead singers in the band slept in a friend's garage when they were struggling artists. The garage was cold and damp. When asked how the accomodations were, "It was a three dog night". | Chris Gansz | ||
| Three Nails | The number of nails used to crucify Jesus. | Christian | ||
| Three Six Mafia | It was originally three members. Then they met three more rappers to join the group. Dj Paul (the frontman) said he got inspired by them meeting the others so he said the name formed by having the original members which were 3 and meeting the three others which makes 6. And he thought of the group as a mafia, so Three Six Mafia. | Dj_Dark | ||
| Thrice | Thrice's name was formed from an inside joke when a friend claimed that he had beaten the game Frogger twice. Lead singer and guitarist Dustin Kensrue responded by bragging that he had beaten the game "thrice". | Clayton | ||
| Thrice | The band chose this name to call themselves right before they played a club and needed a name. "Thrice" was a word they came up with while playing the game Frogger earlier. | Matt Albertsen | ||
| Throb | They were originally called Dick Danger and the Throbbing Members. However, their high school already had Johnny Welfare and The Paychecks, so not wanting another "and the" bands, they shortened the name to tHROB. | Matt | ||
| Throb | Actually, Dick Danger was a joke. They were originally called Highschool Heart Throbs, and of course, that sounded stupid, so their bassist A Hood changed the name to tHROB. The letters are inverted to symbolize noncomformity. | Bassmaster A Hood | ||
| Throbbing Gristle | Throbbing Gristle is a Yorkshire slang for an erection. | Neil Ogden | ||
| Throbbing Gristle | Slang for erection. Meant to be a joke or a way of saying that the band didn't care about how they looked to the industry. | Kissy jo | ||
| Throbbing Gristle | A "throbbing gristle" is slang for a man's genitals. | brit | ||
| The Throwing Muses | Kristin and Tanya just wanted two words that made as little sense as possible together. | dk | ||
| Thursday | In an interview, lead singer Geoff Rickly called it "thursday" because with a name that random, they wouldn't be labeled as "just another punk band". sorry geoff | darkfreak | ||
| Thursday | The singer was involved in a car crash in which a girl was killed. He sings about this crash in most of his songs. BTW, this crash happened on a Thursday. | unit 1 | ||
| Thursday | They wanted a plain name because they didn't want people to judge them by their name, but by their music. | Samantha | ||
| Thyrfing | The band is named after the royal sword Tyrfing from Norse mythology. | weirdkid106 | ||
| Til Tuesday | When they were still trying to get their act together, the band members always rehearsed on Tuesdays; at the end of every session, by way of saying "see ya next time," they would invariably say "'Til Tuesday" (as in, "well, I won't see ya until (the next) Tuesday"). When pressed for a band name, that's the phrase that stuck. | Ulric | ||
| Til Tuesday | There's a very early Bowie song, "Love You Til Tuesday". | Paul | ||
| Till Tuesday | The Boston club scene in the eighties was dominated by a couple of booking agents. These guys were bombarded with bands requesting an open slot to play. They adopted the policy of only taking calls for bookings on Tuesday afternoons. Very soon every musician in town had to tell their band mates "I won't know when we can get a gig till tuesday." | Ken Kozdra | ||
| Tina Tuna and The Wahoo | Pulled out of a hat at a party. | Atun Rooney | ||
| Tiny-G | Small of stature, but with huge talent led to the Tiny-Giants name for this Asian girl band. | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Titanic Wash Hoose Band | A wash hoose is where Scottish grandmothers used to wash the clothes in a copper boiler before they had washing machines. The band uses a washboard and a wash tub, so the wash hoose part. Titanic just means great big huge. Also if you think of the ship, it was flawed, and so are they, but they always go down well! | Stoorie | ||
| TLC | I just wanted to comment on LeLe's because Left-Eye got her name from wearing a condom over her left eye to encourage safe sex. | Aurial | ||
| TLC | TLC was orriginally Tionne Lisa Crystal But when Crystal left after a Disagreement with Manager Pebbles. Pebbles wanted to keep the name so when they Found Rozonda Thomas, she was Dubbed Chilli, because she was the "spicy one". then Tionne began using her Nick name T-Boz, meaning tionne, the boss. And Lisa began Using Left eye when her boyfriend Andre Rison observed that her left eye was slightly larger then her right. So this is TLC And T. L. C. the greatest group ever. | Kristin | ||
| TLC | It stands for T-Boz, Left-Eye and Chilli. T-Boz, as in T for her name Tionne and she's the boss. Left-Eye, some guy told her that he was attracted to her left eye, and Chilli, she's hot like sauce. | LeLe | ||
| TLC | According to Laverna Nichols, President of the TLC fan club in Atlanta, GA, TLC isn't an acronym consisting of their names, nor does it mean "Tender Lovin' Care" TLC stands for Three Loser Coolies. | Emil Sanders | ||
| TLC | TLC originally stood for Tionne, Lisa & Crystal. Crystal was the founder of the group but left after a disagreement with Pebbles (They're then manager). Pebbles wanted to sign a 3-piece and wanted to keep the original name, so Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas was brought in. Left Eye got her name because she has a lazy left eye. | Augustus Del Monte | ||
| Toad | Named after the song by Cream. | Joel Tooth | ||
| Toad the Wet Sprocket | Was made up by Monty Python member Eric Idle for a sketch in 1980 called "Rock Notes." It was the most absurd name he could think up and was certain that no one else would ever use it. Years later in Los Angeles, he claims he nearly drove off the freeway" when he heard the name of the band announced on the radio. | Jeff | ||
| Toad The Wet Sprocket | from a Monty Python sketch | mairi | ||
| Toad The Wet Sprocket | From the first of three gossip stories from a wonderful Monty Python Routine called ROCK NOTES which made fun of the silly "music news" shows that were popping up on rock stations in the early 70s. The line is: Rex Stardust, lead electric triangle with Toad The Wet Sprocket has had to have an elbow removed following their recent successful worldwide tour of Finland. Flamboyant ambidextrous Rex apparently fell of the back of a motorcycle; fell off a motorcyclist most likely quipped ace drummer Jumbo McCloony on hearing of the accident. Plans are already afoot for a major tour of Iceland. | Mark | ||
| Toad the Wet Sprocket | From a Monty Python routine about silly band names. (The routine included several a lot sillier. Really.) | zap | ||
| Toad The Wet Sprocket | "Rock Notes" off the 1980 album "Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album" contained the sentence "Rex Stardust, lead electric triangle with Toad The Wet Sprocket, has had to have an elbow removed following the band's recent worldwide tour of Finland." The gag goes back to Eric Idle's 1976 book "The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book," where it was used in a Rolling Stone parody called "Random Gloats." One day, when Idle was driving and heard the announcer announce the name of Toad The Wet Sprocket, he joked that he nearly drove off the expressway. | Mr. Bun | ||
| Tokio Hotel | (German band)they say: Tokio-because it's a crazy city, Hotel-because they often visit hotels. | slivka | ||
| Tokio Hotel | Originally called Devilish, the boys realised they needed a better band name. They didn't have much time to think about it, so they quickly decided that Tokio Hotel would be a good name for them - 'Tokio' as they're very much city people, and 'Hotel' as they're always on the road, in hotels. | Evenni | ||
| The Tolkien Ensemble | They play songs taken from Tolkien's book, "Lord of the Rings." | Didi | ||
| Tonawanda | They actually got the name from a street in Royal Oak, Michigan. | Cryptic Wizard | ||
| Tonawanda | The two girls who started the band lived in Royal Oak, and they took the name "Tonawanda" from the name of a street near where they lived. | La Choy | ||
| Tone Loc | Real Name: Tony Smith. Tone is short for Tony. The Loc comes from the Spanish word for crazy, loco. | Augustus Del Monte | ||
| Tonedeaf Mime | The singer was at work and heard a co-worker singing ,and she was pretty tone-deaf .Then one day they were walking around in downtown Lincoln Nebraska and saw a mime and put them together. | Scott | ||
| Tones On Tail | Master tapes for albums include a series of tones for calibrating the recording equipment. If the tones are at the beginning of the tape, the engineer will often write "tones on head" on the tape cans, and if they're at the end of the tape, they'll write "tones on tail." | ste3ve | ||
| Tool | It's an acronym for To Orally Obfuscate Leviathan. | draztik | ||
| Tool | Clearly, it is taken from the popular use of the word to describe a gentleman's ahem.... member. | Richard Braithwaite | ||
| Tool | There are in fact two sides to the name. The first is, the story about the band not liking people that can't think for themselves and are just "tools" on puppet strings for whoever they are following (Think for yourself, question authority!!!). This is totally true. The other theory, also very true, is that Maynard is a firm believer in and studies Lahcyrmology, the philosophy by which one cries and the tears represent troubles leaving the body and a natural cleansing of the soul. The band took that and want their music to be a teaching "tool" for understanding the philosophy. This is evident since each album (even Opiate) has some reference to water. | GrAyMiSt | ||
| Tool | Maynard went to military school before he was in Tool. Certain people there would follow each and every rule given, and would even turn in their own best friends for the slightest violations. These people were termed "tools". Thus, the name of the band. | RuinerXL | ||
| Tool | In a 1994 interview, Danny said that the band's name stands for how they want their music to be a tool to aid in understanding lachrymology ("the study of crying"). | Melissa | ||
| Tool | The members of this band decided on this name as they consider their music a "tool" to ground out their frustrations and emotions | Rob | ||
| Tool | Originally the band was called "Toolshed". They later changed their name to Tool, because they use their music as a tool to get their ideas across. | Amanda | ||
| Tool | One of the other band members would ofter joke about taking Maynard(the lead singer) "out in back of the toolshed." They named the band Toolshed after this, but shortly after, shortened it to Tool. | Mantlepicture | ||
| Tool | it generally means that they are a device which creates, it also anti the system and people who are tools and pathetic to the system. | Toolfan | ||
| Toploader | Toploader refers to the way ammunition is loaded into a 7.62mm heavy machine gun used by the British Army. | Robin Ellwood | ||
| Toploader | A toploader (apart from being a style of washing machine) is a person who, when rolling a joint places all the "goods" at one end so when they get the first smoke they use most of the drugs leaving little for their friends to enjoy. | Niall | ||
| Tora Tora | This is a short lived (but good) blues metal band from the late 80's. The name is from the movie likely. More interestingly, in an interview one of the members said they were originally called "Free Beer"--they figured if anyone saw "tonight-free beer" on a marquee, they would be sure to stop in. | me | ||
| Tori Amos | Tori Amos was born Myra Ellen Amos but figured out that you really *can't* get many guys (or sell records :p) with the name Myra Ellen. She was at a bar with a few friends and one of her guy friends said, 'You look like a Tori' and thus the name stuck. | Snowii | ||
| Total Confusion | The Lead Guitarist mom was watching them practice one day, and noticed that none of the really knew what they were doing! | Shawn Wright | ||
| Toto | The name "Toto" has nothing to do with "The Wizard of OZ". Jeff Porcaro in an interview 1988: "The name Toto comes from the latin term TOTAS, which means like totally, everything. And that's what we're trying to do. Play music which contains all of the genres we love..." | Peter | ||
| Toto | Actually, they got the name from a certain African tribe. | F*** you. | ||
| Toto | Lead man Bobby Kimbal's real name is Robert Toteaux - pronounced Toto. | Spacemuse | ||
| Toto | Suprisingly, this had nothing to do with Dorothy's dog. The name came from a urinal manufacturer. They were trying to come up with a name and saw Toto on a urinal. | Zosolias | ||
| Toto | The rock band name was named after Dorothy's pet dog from the movie "Wizard Of Oz". Named by the late, great Jeff Porcaro. | Mike Hack | ||
| Toto | Otherwise "Toto" is a Latin word and means "all encompassing" But the "Wizard of Oz"-Story is right, too...Jeff Porcaro suggested this name after he watched the movie on TV. It´s easy to pronounce and remember... | tls2k1 | ||
| Toto | The band's name is attributable to Dorothy's dog in "The Wizard Of Oz". | Ginger | ||
| TOUCH | The Original Undeniable Charismatic Homme! | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Tourniquet | The name is derrived from a medical device used to keep a severly injured person from losing too much blood- so thus, tourniquet, life saver. | Jeremiah Witte | ||
| Tower Of Power | "Tower of power" is slang for an erect penis. | Sexy California Man | ||
| Toy Box | Anila Mirza and Amir El Falaki both thought that there music sounded happy and bouncy and they thought that it was like stuff in a Toy Box. And they both said that their music came from inside their souls so they came up with....TOY BOX. | Heather | ||
| Toy Matinee | Named after one of their own songs. The Toy Matinee is about the fleetingness of our interests. We play with a new toy for a few minutes to while away an afternoon (hance the matinee notion) but we rapidly grow bored and toss it aside. | Dana | ||
| Tragically Hip | The earliest record of the phrase is from the liner notes of the Tubes' 1976 album "Young and Rich". If "the Hip" were not aware of this album I would be very surprised. | David Bruce | ||
| The Tragically Hip | Actually the name was taken from a book ( I forget the name right now) about these club-goers who needed money to buy cocaine, so they would go around asking people to make donations for the tragically hip. | Andrea Howe | ||
| The Tragically Hip | You're both half-right. Mike Nesmith's Video (Elephant Parts) is something like today's Saturday Night Live or Kids in the Hall shows. One of the sketches involved T"he Foundation for the Tragically Hip": Poor, afflicted people in need of jacuzzis, Lamborghinis, and cocaine. | Erik | ||
| Tragically Hip | Took their name from a skit in a Mike Nesmith video, Elephant Parts. | Bobo | ||
| Train | Rob thought of it: In an interview with Echo & the Bunnymen, they said there was nothing left in the US that was romantic. Rob disagreed and thought that the most romantic thing about the US was the train. | Trainiac | ||
| Trans-Siberian Orchestra | According to Bob Kinkel, the group was named after the Trans-Siberian Railroad because that continent-crossing line connects so many cultures otherwise isolated in a harsh but beautiful landscape. ?Music does the same thing,? he says. http://www.styleweekly.com/article.asp?idarticle=5640 | WoodButcher | ||
| Transmatic | This Indianapolis band juxtaposed and shortened "automatic transmission". | indyhick |
Entries starting with T are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3
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