The Stories Behind 12 Famous Band Names
Some of the most famous names in music were decided in about ninety seconds, and a surprising number came from a joke, a misheard word or a record someone happened to be holding. Here are the stories behind twelve band names you already know by heart.
Twelve names and where they came from
- The Beatles — a pun. They admired Buddy Holly’s Crickets and wanted their own insect, so “beetles” had its spelling tweaked to nod at beat music.
- The Rolling Stones — taken from the Muddy Waters song “Rollin’ Stone”, reportedly grabbed in a hurry when someone needed a name for a phone call.
- Pink Floyd — a tribute stitched from two bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, whose names sat together on a record sleeve.
- Led Zeppelin — born from a joke that the band would go down like a “lead balloon”. They kept the insult and dropped the “a” so nobody would say it wrong.
- ABBA — simply the first initials of the four members: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid.
- Radiohead — lifted from a Talking Heads song called “Radio Head”, after their original name had to go.
- Lynyrd Skynyrd — a deliberately mangled tribute to Leonard Skinner, the school gym teacher who disapproved of boys with long hair.
- Green Day — slang, straightforwardly, for a day spent doing very little but smoking.
- Duran Duran — a character from the science-fiction film Barbarella.
- Depeche Mode — from a French fashion magazine; it translates roughly as “fast fashion”, and they liked the sound more than the meaning.
- Nirvana — the Buddhist idea of release from suffering. Kurt Cobain wanted something beautiful rather than another aggressive punk name.
- Coldplay — inherited. Another band used it first and let it go, and the name itself came from a book of poetry.
Pull almost any thread in music history and you find something like this at the end of it — a decision made quickly that ended up on a hundred million record sleeves.
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If this is your kind of rabbit hole, Daily Sound Check is built for it — a free Android app that hands you a fresh hit of music every day: artist profiles, full discographies and chart history to dig through, plus a daily quiz to test how good your ear really is. A small, pleasurable habit for anyone who likes knowing the stories behind the songs.
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Frequently asked questions
Why are The Beatles spelled that way?
It is a pun on “beetles” — inspired by Buddy Holly’s Crickets — respelled to nod at beat music.
Where does the name Pink Floyd come from?
From two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, whose names appeared together on a record sleeve.
What does ABBA stand for?
The first initials of the four members: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid.
Why are they called Led Zeppelin?
From a joke that the band would go down like a lead balloon. The spelling was simplified so the pronunciation was obvious.
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