AC/DC: A band member saw AC/DC on a sewing machine. It stood for 'Alternating Current / Direct Current'. The band didn't realize it was also slang for bi-sexual, which caused a few misunderstandings in their early days.
ALICE COOPER: Although it has been rumored for years that the band took its name after consulting a Ouija board, vocalist Vincent Furnier said in an interview with the VH1 TV series Behind The Music "I remember we were sitting around talking about band names. I was eating Doritos and just said the first name that came to mind. Which was Alice Cooper."
THE BEATLES: Original bassist Stuart Sutcliffe came up with the Beetles in 1960, which was a play on Buddy Holly's Crickets. John Lennon is generally credited with combining Beetles and Beat to come up with the Beatles spelling.
BLACK SABBATH: Named after a 1963 horror movie starring Boris Karloff.
CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL: Originally called The Golliwogs, unconfirmed reports say the band took their new name from Norvel Creedence, a friend of band leader John Fogerty. John's favorite beer was called Clearwater, which, after it disappeared from the market for a time, was re-introduced by another brewery. The result: Creedence Clearwater Revival.
DEEP PURPLE: Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's grandmother liked the Bing Crosby song "Deep Purple".
DEF LEPPARD: Inspired by a drawing Joe Elliot made of a leopard with no ears, a 'Deaf Leopard'.
DOORS: The band took their name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, which was in turn borrowed from a line in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a poem by the 18th century artist and poet William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite".
ELTON JOHN: Reginald Dwight took his stage name from two other British musicians, Elton Dean and Long John Baldry.
FIVE MAN ELECTRICAL BAND: Originally called The Staccatos, the band changed their name to the title of their third album. They would go on to reach #3 on the Billboard chart with "Signs" and #26 with "Absolutely Right".
FOGHAT: When interviewer Gary James asked drummer Roger Earl: "Is there a significance to the band's name?" Earl had this to say: "No real significance. Lonesome Dave (Peverett) threw out the name when he was like twelve or thirteen. He was playing like kind of a scrabble game with his brother and Dave came up with a name and insisted it was a name. Dave eventually was right. We were on our way into the studio to do the artwork for the first album and we didn't have a title for the band. So, we had to decide.
GENESIS: The first book in the Bible. The name was part of their first album title 'From Genesis to Revelation', which was suggested by their original manager, Jonathan King.
GRATEFUL DEAD: Refers to a series of Old English folk tales with the same basic theme. A traveler enters a village and finds the villagers desecrating, or refusing to bury the body of a dead man because he died owing creditors money. The traveler pays the dead man's debts and sees to a decent burial. Later in his travels, the man is saved by a mysterious event, which is credited to the dead man's grateful spirit. Hence, the Grateful Dead. The band was originally the Warlocks, and picked Grateful Dead out of a dictionary after realizing there was another band called the Warlocks.
GRAND FUNK RAILROAD: The band named themselves "Grand Funk Railroad" after a Michigan landmark, The Grand Trunk Railroad.
IRON MAIDEN: Named after a medieval torture device. It was a box big enough to admit a man, with folding-doors which were studded with sharp iron spikes. When the doors were closed, these spikes were forced into the body of the victim, who was left there to die in horrible torture.
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: Inspired by the blues player Blind Lemon Jefferson and the name of a friend's dog, jefferson airplane is also slang for a used paper match, split open to hold a marijuana joint that has been smoked too short to hold without burning the hands, an improvised roach clip.
JETHRO TULL: In December, 1967, flautist / guitarist Ian Anderson, bassist Glenn Cornick, guitarist / singer Mick Abrahams and drummer Clive Bunker formed a new band. They began playing two shows a week, trying out different names, including Navy Blue and Bag of Blues. Their manager suggested Jethro Tull, the name of a British barrister and farmer who, in the mid-1700s, invented a device called the seed drill, which could sew three rows of seeds simultaneously. Ian Anderson strongly disliked the name, but it became popular and memorable, and it stuck.
JUDAS PRIEST: Taken from the Bob Dylan tune "The ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest".
KING CRIMSON: Their original lyricist, Peter Sinfield, thought of it as a synonym for Beelzebub, which is Hebrew for 'Lord of the Flies'. Beelzebub was Satan's chief lieutenant among the fallen angels.
KISS: According to Paul Stanley, Kiss was a momentary inspiration that sounded dangerous and sexy at the same time. Band members deny the rumor that the name stands for 'Knights In Satan's Service'.
LED ZEPPELIN: The Yardbirds were just wrapping up their final US tour before splitting up. Guitarist Jimmy Page was determined to keep the act going, renaming a new line-up The New Yardbirds. Keith Moon of The Who is rumored to have said "...it'll probably go over like a led zeppelin", thus inspiring the final name change. The 'Led' spelling was to make sure people pronounced the name right.
LYNYRD SKYNYRD: Named after Robert E. Lee High school gym coach, Leonard Skinner, who punished founding members Gary Rossington and Bob Burns several times for breaking the school's strict dress code, which did not allow boys to have long hair touching the collar or sideburns below the ears. Earlier band names were 'Noble Five' and 'One Percent'.
MOTHERS OF INVENTION: Originally just called the Mothers (short for Motherfuckers). Their record label persuaded them to add 'of Invention'.
NAZARETH: The group who gave us "Love Hurts" in 1976 took their name from the first line of The Band's classic song "The Weight" ("I pulled into Nazareth / Was feelin' 'bout half past dead.")
PINK FLOYD: This British band used various names, including "The Meggadeaths", "the T-Set" and "the Screaming Abdabs", before settling on "The Pink Floyd Sound", inspired by American blues artists, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The name was later shortened to just Pink Floyd.
IGGY POP: In his biography, Gimme Danger, Iggy says the name came from one of his early bands, the Iguanas. When he formed The Stooges, their management billed him as Iggy Stooge, but Iggy wasn't too keen on it and changed it to Iggy Pop, reasoning that Pop has a kind of energy to it.
QUEEN: Freddie Mercury liked the name for the transvestite connotation and the glamorous image of Queens in royalty.
RAMONES: In honor of Paul McCartney, who, early in his career, used to call himself Paul Ramone. The members of the band all used the last name Ramone, even though it's not their given name.
ROLLING STONES: From the Muddy Waters song "Rolling Stone". The name was suggested by guitarist, Brian Jones.
RUSH: They were rushing to think up a name before their first gig, and John Rustey's older brother yelled, "Why don't you call your band Rush?".
SEX PISTOLS: Manager, Malcolm Mclaren came up with the name. It was inspired by his punk clothing shop called 'Sex'.
DEL SHANNON: While working a day job as a carpet salesman, Charles Westover managed to join a country-rock band at the Hi-Lo Club in Battle Creek, Michigan. A club regular had dreams of becoming a famous wrestler as Mark Shannon. Liking the name Shannon, Westover borrowed the surname and derived Del from his favourite make of car, the Cadillac Coupe DeVille. "DeVille, Del, that's where I got it from," Shannon explained to Dick Clark, "Could you imagine myself walking on stage and being introduced: 'Ladies and gentlemen, Charles Westover!' It had no ammunition."
SLY & THE FAMILY STONE: According to his official web site, Sylvester Stewart came by the nickname Sly around the time he was in the fifth grade. During a school spelling bee, one of his classmates accidentally inverted the "y" and the "l" and Syl became Sly. The kids teased and the name stuck. The "Family Stone" came from the fact that Sly, his sister Rosie and brother Freddie all adopted the stage name "Stone" when they formed their new band.
STEELY DAN: Named after a dildo in the William Burroughs novel 'Naked Lunch'. According to Burroughs, the Steely Dan was a metal dildo that an evil German bulldyke prostitute crushed using her nether regions.
STEPPENWOLF: The band was originally called 'Sparrow', until lead singer John Kay came up the new name after being inspired by a novel by cult author Herman Hesse.
STYX: Starting out in 1961 as The Tradewinds, they finally outgrew that name and chose Styx after the mythical river that people cross over to go into Hell.
SUPERTRAMP: Named after a book called 'Autobiography of a Supertramp', written by R.E. Davies in 1910.
10cc: For years, a story has circulated that the band chose the name because the average man ejaculates 9cc of sperm, making 10cc even better. But it was actually the group's manager, Jonathan King, who came up with the unusual name after he dreamed that a band he managed called 10cc had the number one album and single simultaneously in America. For the record, the average man ejaculates 3cc of sperm.
THREE DOG NIGHT: While trying to think of a name that would show that the band had three lead singers, they nearly settled on 'Tricycle', until singer Danny Hutton's girlfriend came up with a suggestion. She had read a magazine article about the Australian aborigines, who on cold nights, would sleep beside their dogs for warmth. The very coldest weather was called a "three dog night".
THIN LIZZY: There are at least three versions of the origin of the name Thin Lizzy. Since no interviews with members of the band confirm any of them, they will remain as speculation. The most obvious yet least likely is that the band's name was taken from the nickname of a Ford Model T. (Tin Lizzy) Another story comes from Jim Fitzpatrick, who as a producer of artwork for the band and a friend of Phil Lynott, suggests that Lynott was inspired to name the band after a girl he met, whose name was Liz Igoe, and that he added the Tin because it "scanned better". The most popular story describes how the band's original lead guitarist, Eric Bell, who was a fan of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, bought a copy of a Dandy comic after seeing Eric Clapton depicted reading a copy of its sister publication The Beano on the cover of the 1966 album "Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton". Bell suggested Tin Lizzie, the name of a robot character from the comic, which evolved into Thin Lizzy, a sly nod to the Dublin accent in which "Thin" is pronounced "Tin".
URIAH HEEP: After using several names during their developing years, manager Gerry Bron suggested "Uriah Heep", based on the 'horrible little character from Charles Dickens' novel, "David Copperfield".
VELVET UNDERGROUND: The name of an S&M magazine that a band member found on a sidewalk in New York.
THE WHO: While taking suggestions for a new name, someone noticed that the band members were already so hard of hearing that they kept saying, "The who?"
YES: While the group members searched for an appropriate name, guitarist Peter Banks suggested they called the group Yes, a very short and positive word. The others agreed that the name was not meant to be permanent, but just a temporary solution.
ZZ TOP: According to guitarist Billy Gibbons, their odd name came from one or more of the following - two brands of cigarette rolling paper, Zig-Zag and Top, - a tribute to blues legend Z.Z. Hill - or Gibbons seeing the two words running together on a dilapidated billboard.
