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How famous bands chose their names

The history of rock and roll is filled with legendary stories of how songs were written or inspired (hello there, "Layla") and even more legendary myths of the antics of bands on tour or in the studio. However, before any of those bands could pen a song that ended up in steady rotation on your local classic rock station, break download records or become mythic figures, they needed something everyone and everything needs: a name. This is the story of several such bands and artists.

 
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Lynyrd Skynyrd

Lynyrd Skynyrd
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Before they inspired drunk buffoons to yell "Free Bird" at an opening act, Lynyrd Skynyrd was a humble band from Jacksonville with long hair and a cranky gym teacher. The story goes Leonard Skinner, a basketball coach at Robert E. Lee High School, thought a group of students' hair was too long. He sent the students to the principal's office where they were suspended until they cut their hair. The students decided to honor Mr. Skinner, who died in 2010, by naming their band after him, while aligning the spelling with its intended, Southern pronunciation.

 
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Run The Jewels

Run The Jewels
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Atlanta-and-Brooklyn-based duo Run The Jewels are two of the finest wordsmiths in music. Killer Mike and El-P decided on their name after they started collaborating and agreed on Run the Jewels as their moniker because it was from a LL Cool song, "Cheesy Rat Blues." The two decided the phrase both embodied their ethos as well as originated from the era they both fell in love with music, so the name stuck.

 
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Steely Dan

Steely Dan
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Befitting their reputation as the leading nerds in rock, Steely Dan only became a band after Donald Fagen and Walter Becker decided they were wasting their songwriting on other artists at their day job at ABC Records out in Los Angeles. The two, who both read a lot of "Beat" literature (Kerouac, Ginsberg), decided to name their band after a sex toy featured in William Burroughs' "Naked Lunch." See? Nerds, but cool ones for sure.

 
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Metallica

Metallica
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Metallica, like many bands mentioned here, was formed through an ad in a local newspaper. Lars Ulrich was looking for musicians to jam with and found James Hetfield and others through an alt-weekly. Ulrich found the band's name through another friend, who was deciding what to call his 'zine about the L.A. scene: MetalMania or Metallica. Ulrich's pal went with MetalMania, at Ulrich's persistent urging, and Ulrich took Metallica for his nascent group.

 
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Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin
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Weirdly, Led Zeppelin wasn't named by anyone in Led Zeppelin. Rather, the band's name was inspired by a crack made by Keith Moon, drummer of The Who. In a recording studio, Moon and several other musicians who went on to great things, like Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, laid down a new song. Moon remarked:"Yeah. We’ll call it Lead Zeppelin. Because it will go over like a f***ing lead balloon.” Two years later, when naming a new band, Jimmy Page remembered that story and spiced it up a little bit, changing the spelling to Led so people wouldn't be confused and pronounce it Leed Zeppelin.

 
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Duran Duran

Duran Duran
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Taking their cue from film history, the band members named themselves after Dr. Durand Durand, a character in the cult science-fiction film "Barbarella," of which many band members were a fan.

 
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KISS

KISS
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The band that became KISS had already been performing as Wicked Lester, but after Ace Frehley joined the band, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss were driving around New York City when Criss mentioned he used to be in a band called Lips. Stanley suggested KISS as the new name. Frehley drew their now iconic logo, crossed "Wicked Lester" out of some promotional materials, and the rest is history.

 
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311

311
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Formed in the late 1980s in Omaha, Neb., 311 saw some success in the mid-'90s and early-2000s with their combination of alternative, reggae and funk. The band's name, which undoubtedly has a crazy story behind it, comes from the Omaha police department's code for indecent exposure.

 
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AC/DC

AC/DC
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Keeping it in the family is something AC/DC has long done since it was formed by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Their name came from the Young household, too. The two got an assist from their sister Margaret, who saw the initials, meaning alternating current/direct current, on a sewing machine. The brothers, knowing about their energetic performances, thought "that's the name."

 
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Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses
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This one's simple enough. Tracii Guns and Axl Rose were in a band together called LA Guns. Axl left to start Rose, which became Hollywood Rose. Tracii joined that band, and they named it Guns N' Roses. Tracii and Axl didn't get along so he left to reform LA Guns. Slash replaced Tracii, and the name stayed. OK, maybe not so simple.

 
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Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd
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Plenty of bands name themselves after other bands in some fashion or another, and this one is no different. Pink Floyd got their name after two musicians they admired: Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, early American bluesmen. Sadly, the two passed away within a year of each other and within a year of the release of the band's 1975 album "Wish You Were Here."

 
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The Clash

The Clash
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The Clash were named after Mick Jones says he kept seeing the word "clash" in newspaper headlines. He offered that suggestion to the group. Joe Strummer agreed that it fit them perfectly. They were both right.

 
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The Beatles

The Beatles
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The greatest band of all time were, for a spell, the Quarrymen. Who knows where rock and roll history would have gone if Stuart Sutcliffe, the band's original bassist, and John Lennon, his schoolmate, hadn't decided to honor Buddy Holly and the Crickets by changing their name to an insect as well. May we never have to know.

 
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DEVO

DEVO
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DEVO stands for "devolution," which is exactly what it sounds like ("descent or degeneration to a lower or worse state"). The phenomena is something the band feels is happening to the human race. According to the band's biography, "from their concept of 'de-evolution' — the idea that instead of continuing to evolve, mankind has actually begun to regress, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society." Fun!

 
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Aerosmith

Aerosmith
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The Boston band got their name from within their ranks: Drummer Joey Kramer was listening to "Aerial Ballet" by Harry Nilsson with his high school girlfriend. The two started thinking of band names with "aero," and Kramer landed on Aerosmith, which he started scribbling on any surface he could. Years later, when trying to think of a name with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Kramer remembered the name he wrote on schoolbooks, and after some convincing by Kramer, they kept the name and the band was on their way.

 
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Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters
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The post-Nirvana group of Dave Grohl is named after UFOs spotted during World War II. Both Allied and Axis forces reported seeing these basketball-sized objects floating over battlefields and believed they were spy devices being used by the other side. People who claim to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings have reported seeing similar objects. I want to believe.

 
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Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac
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Oddly, Fleetwood Mac was named by Peter Green, a guitar virtuoso looking to draw less attention to himself, who named the group after his friends, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. Luckily for Green, the two joined new band as well.

 
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Primus

Primus
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The story of how Primus was named is one of the best ones on this list. Les Claypool once used a Primus grill. Once when out at the beach grilling up some fish, Claypool remarked to the fish, and those around, "Now you're cookin' with Primus, you bastard." The grill immediately ran out of gas, and his friends never let Les live that moment down. Les Claypool has great friends.

 
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Fugazi

Fugazi
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Another military-themed name. Oddly, the legendary post-hardcore band took their name from a Vietnam War term used by troops. Similar to FUBAR and SNAFU, FUGAZI referred to careless soldiers who were killed who "f-d up, got ambushed, zipped in [to a body bag]."

 
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Grand Funk Railroad

Grand Funk Railroad
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1970s rock owes much to Grand Funk. They paved the way for Jefferson Airplane, which cleared the way for Jefferson Starship, setting the stage for The Alan Parsons Project, which many believe was some sort of hovercraft. Featuring the wild, shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner, the bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher and the competent drum work of Don Brewer, Grand Funk got their name from a train overpass in their hometown of Flint, Mich., which read Grand Trunk Railroad. You kids don't know Grand Funk? Oh, man.

 
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Radiohead

Radiohead
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Here's another example of a band named after the work of another band. In the case of Thom Yorke's creation, he looked across the Atlantic for inspiration: the Talking Heads' album "True Stories," which features a track called "Radiohead."

 
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Motörhead

Motörhead
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After being well-advised by a friend to change the name of his band to something that wasn't a swear word or reference to a person whose parents were not married, Lemmy Kilmister went with "Motorhead," after a song he had written for an old band as well as a slang term for a person on amphetamines.

 
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Oasis

Oasis
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While hanging out, the Gallagher boys and friends (ignoring that perfect band name, weirdly) saw an ad for a band that was on tour. One of the venues listed was a club called The Oasis, three hours south of their hometown of Manchester in Swindon. They dropped the The, as one does, and found themselves a band name.

 
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Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam
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There's no official story about the origins of the name Pearl Jam, as far as I can tell. But a suggestion the band has not denied is that Eddie Vedder's grandmother was named Pearl and liked to make homemade jam with a sprinkle of peyote in it. Vedder's denied this story more recently than he's suggested it, so let's go with another explanation: The band saw Neil Young perform extended versions of his songs and decided to tack Jam onto a name they were already thinking about using. Pearl Jam, however, really messed up by going down this avenue in the first place. They had already been performing under the name Mookie Blaylock, after the Atlanta Hawks basketball player. Also, you should see "Singles" if you love alternative rock, basketball player cameos and Eddie Vedder playing second banana to Matt Dillon nailing "insufferable."

 
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The Replacements

The Replacements
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The Replacements went with their name after once again having to change their name after being banned from a venue for being drunken folk heroes. In the touchstone book "Our Band Can Be Your Life," Chris Mars further discussed the name of the band, saying, "Like maybe the main act doesn't show, and instead the crowd has to settle for an earful of us dirtbags... It seemed to sit just right with us, accurately describing our collective 'secondary' social esteem."

 
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The Who

The Who
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When thinking of what to call their band, the members of this one took suggestions from anyone who had one. When odd suggestions were made, or because of early onset tinnitus, the band joked, "The who?" Didn't take long for that one to catch on.

 
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The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground
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Musicians Lou Reed and John Cale shared experimentalist tendencies, which drove the pair together to recruit for the eventual Velvets. Their earlier band, The Primitives, soon brought on Sterling Morrison and Angus MacLise, and a friend of Cale introduced the book "The Velvet Underground," about sexual subcultures in the 1960s USA, to the group, giving them the inspiration for their eventual name.

 
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Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane
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The San Francisco-based masters of psychedelic rock found their name in somewhat surprising fashion. Guitarist Jorma Kaukonen borrowed it from his friend's dog, Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane, named for blues pioneer Blind Lemon Jefferson. 

 
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Weezer

Weezer
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There are two conflicting stories as to how Weezer got their moniker. The most prevalent, at least on the internet, is that singer and founder Rivers Cuomo was teased by other children in school for being asthmatic, earning the nickname "Weezer" (or "wheezer"). The second, from Cuomo himself, was that his father give it to him as a toddler. Whether or not it his father did so because it was related to his asthma is unclear. 

 
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Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age
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"Queens of the Stone Age" might seems like an odd name for a riff-oriented, hard-rocking band —why not "Kings of the Stone Age"?— but frontman Josh Homme nicely summed up the attitude behind going with the feminine: "Kings would be too macho... Rock should be heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls."

 
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Blue Oyster Cult

Blue Oyster Cult
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Proto-metal rockers and cowbell enthusiasts Blue Öyster Cult (with the umlaut) derived their name from a poem written by their manager, Sandy Pearlman. Originally known as 'Soft White Underbelly', the band settled with the reference to Pearlman's Blue Öyster Cult, in which the name referred to a group of aliens who had secretly assembled to guide the history of our planet. Pretty trippy stuff.

 
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System of a Down

System of a Down
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Chalk this up to another poetry-influenced inspiration: System of a Down derived their band name from a poem that founding member Daron Malakian wrote entitled 'Victims of a Down'. The group thought the wiser of subbing out the first part of that title for the more appealing "System," which they settled on as it would shelve their records alphabetically closer to their musical heroes: Slayer.

 
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Linkin Park

Linkin Park
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There are a great many places named "Lincoln Park" in the United States, with the most famous being arguably Chicago's, but it would be a Southern California version that would serve as the inspiration for the alternative/nu-metal outfit. While the band originally wanted to name it with the traditional spelling as an homage to the Lincoln Park in Santa Monica, the internet domain lincolnpark.com was already taken, forcing a change to the version we know today.

 
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Red Hot Chili Peppers

Red Hot Chili Peppers
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Originally a side project by classmates Anthony Kiedis, Hillel Slovak, Flea, and Jack Irons, the Chili Peppers started out as the atrociously-named "What Is This?", before encountering some early success and needing a stronger name for billing. Eventually, Slovak and Irons would spin off under the original name, while Kiedis and Flea would recruit new members, and RHCP would go on to become rock legends.

 
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Green Day

Green Day
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Sometimes, marijuana-inspired nicknames can be fairly obvious, like The Doobie Brothers or Canibus. Other times, they can be slightly more subtle or obscure, as in the case of Green Day, who took their name from a local (meaning San Francisco Bay Area, in their case) term for spending a day, well, getting high.

 
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R.E.M.

R.E.M.
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The Athens, Georgia-based alternative legends actually threw caution to the wind and had frontman Michael Stipe select the name R.E.M. (after the stage of sleep called rapid eye movement) at random from the dictionary. Good thing for what it landed on, as the band previously considered "Twisted Kites," among other, less appropriate names.

 
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U2

U2
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U2's multi-decade status as one of the world's biggest bands has humble origins, as the band was formed by several teenagers —including current members Paul Hewson (Bono), David Evans (The Edge), Larry Mullen, and Adam Clayton— at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, Ireland. After starting as the decidedly not original "The Larry Mullen Band," the group would adopt "Feedback" as their performing name, followed by "The Hype." A friend of Clayton suggested several other names, of which U2 was selected for its "ambiguity and open-ended interpretations," and also simply because it was the name the members disliked least.

 
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The Black Keys

The Black Keys
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Bluesy garage rockers Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney broke into the mainstream in the 2010s, though the childhood pals formed way back in 2001 after both dropping out of college. The duo's name has its origins in their longtime friendship; according to an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air," a schizophrenic acquaintance of the pair would leave rambling, incoherent messages on their answering machines that referred to their fathers as "black keys" (referring to those on a piano). 

 
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The White Stripes

The White Stripes
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On the opposite end of the band name color spectrum, the former Detroit ex-husband-and-wife duo kept their naming simple. After the former Jack Gillis married Meg White in 1996, he took the somewhat unconventional step of taking her surname. After forming their band, the two floated names like "Bazooka" and "Soda Powder," and nearly went with "The Peppermints" because of Meg's love of the candies. Ultimately, they settled on The White Stripes after their last name. 

David Matthews writes and tweets from Brooklyn.

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