27 Bands And The Amazing Stories Behind Their Names

What’s in the name?

Apparently a lot. Your name, actually the name of anything comes with a story behind it. A name is everything that defines something and more. It tells you the back story of something’s existence and you feel much closer to it.

Here are a few bands with absolute kickass names with an interesting story behind each and every one of them.

1. ABBA

This evergreen bands’ name doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s just a palindromic acronym of the first name initials of the band mates that are Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

2. Savage Garden

This duo picked up their name from an Anne Rice novel who is famous for being an acclaimed vampire novel author.

3. Led Zeppelin

Their then drummer, Keith Moon while practicing with them remarked that this is going to go like a “lead zeppelin” which is an inspired way of using the popular American phrase, “like a lead balloon” which is used for something that’ll inevitably and predictably fail. That didn’t actually come true, though! 😀

The reason the misspelled lead was they though people will definitely read it wrong, so to put the right pronunciation through they named it Led Zeppelin.

4. Lynyrd Skynyrd

These cheeky boys made fun of their gym teacher Leonard Skinner by naming themselves by his name who apparently didn’t like boys with long hair and hence got them suspended from school.

5. Pearl Jam

There are two theories. Some say that Eddie Vedder gramma’s name was Pearl hence the Pearl in the name. the second explanation was however given by one of the band members stating that they were inspired by the process of the formation of pearls which essentially takes the waste and makes something beautiful.

6. AC/DC

Their lead guitarist if you’ve noticed always came in a costume of a schoolboy uniform, which his sister used to sew for him. They saw AC/DC on her sewing machine and that’s where their electrifying journey started!

7. Rolling Stones

They were inspired by the Muddy waters song “Mannish Boy” which contained this phrase.

8. U2

Their explanation is that they’re depicting the feeling of “You too!” when you see someone who shares similar experiences with you, but there is a popular rumor that it has something to do with the Cold War era spy planes.

9. Daft Punk

These boys took this name out a negative review they got for their first musical endeavor calling their music “daft punky thrash“. How cool is that! 😀

10. The Doors

Jim Morrisson being the crazy fellow he was, took the inspiration from an Adolf Huxley sci-fi novel called “The Door of Perception“.

11. Coldplay

These peeps were called Starfish before they became Coldplay. Can you believe that?
Apparently there was another band who had picked it from a book of poems named “Child’s Reflections: Cold Play” didn’t want this name and they asked if they could take it. Whose loss was that? 😛

12. Beatles

Inspired by Buddy Holland’s “The Crickets” These people too were fascinated by the double meaning theme of a name hence, they became The Beatles meaning the insects as well as the beats in their songs.

13. Foo Fighters

This phrase is actually known as a World War II slang term for UFO sightings.

14. Green Day

Yes, you guessed it right, it is about weed. It is a direct dedication to the days spent smoking up. :P,

15. Iron Maiden

Their weapon is inspired by a medieval torture device that is a compartment shaped like a human (female) which has spikes and knives inside which will puncture the person standing inside once closed.

16. Oasis

The band was on a tour and saw the show listings, one of which was the Oasis Leisure Centre, Swindon and the rest is history, as they say.

17. Pink Floyd

Previously known as The Tea Set, these kids noticed that another band of the same name was doing a gig at the same place as they were and as fate would have it, the founder member, Syd Barrett combined the first names of his favorite blues musicians, Pink Anderson, and Floyd Council and the rest is history.

18. Queen

This name was the brainchild of Freddy Mercury and despite the agitation of the band members with this name and people giving it the connotation of being associated with gay themes, the name stuck and they became one of the greatest bands ever.

19. Megadeth

The guitarist, after being fired from Metallica was just doodling on a random flyer while on a bus when he read what was written on it. It said, ” The arsenal of megadeath can’t be rid no matter what the peace treaties come to”.

20. Avenged Sevenfold

These metal band actually found their name in a Bible passage in the Book of Genesis. It says ” If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold”.

21. Black Sabbath

This band is named after a horror movie of 1963 starring Boris Karloff of the same name.

22. Fall Out Boy

These kids named their band after an obscure character which appeared on a few episodes of The Simpsons.

23. Blink 182

The band was given very less time by the record label to decide for a different name as their previous name was already patented by another band so that night they decried Blink to be the word and decided they’d put the number Al Pacino says “F**k you!” in Scarface, which they were watching at the time, next to it.