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).
Entries starting with F are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3
There are 4772 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
f(x) | The name is a play on the mathematical notation for function, and when input with different 'x', there can be many different outcomes. | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
Fabolous | He was in the studio spitting a freestyle for DJ Clue. He said "Fabulous" many times in his freestyle. When he was done, DJ Clue assumed that his name was Fabulous. So Fab decided to change the U to an O and call himself F.A.B.O.L.O.U.S. | Malika | ||
Fabulous Disaster | From the Exodus album of the same name. | Marcie | ||
The Faces / Small Faces | A 'Face' is a gangland mob leader in the London underworld, not a mod fashion victim, and a 'Small Face' is a new crook in town. | Jon Wisbey | ||
Faded Shade | It is a reference to what the world would be like after a nuclear war. The nuclear cloud would leave everything, even on a sunny day, in a Faded Shade. | Alumni Corner | ||
Fairport Convention | Guitarist Simon Nicol's family owned a house called 'Fairport' where the band would 'convene' for their early rehearsals. They therefore became the 'Fairport Convention' | Unhalfbrcking | ||
Fairport Convention | Named after the house ("Fairport") in the Muswell Hill section of London where they originally got together to practise. | mike weber | ||
Faith & the Muse | Goth/ Death Rock/ Celtic style band; name come from guitarist Williams Faith's last name; his " Muse " being his wife and lead singer Monica Richards. | Kaenan 1340 | ||
Faith Hill | Faith got her name from a family who adopted her. They were not expecting to get a reply for a baby girl so soon. The family decided that because of their faith, this little bright-eyed girl was given to them. | lindsay | ||
Faith No More | The band was named "Faith No More" after a greyhound they had placed a bet on at the track. They were called this 3 years before Chuck Mosely joined (around 1980). Mosely was fired in 1988. -- Submitter Dr Faustus is mostly incorrect on all, even Mosely's spelling, and only correct in that they did actually go through many singers from 1980 - 1983. Source = "Encyclopedia Of Rock" by Rees & Crampton. Thanks, Mike G. | Mike G | ||
Faith No More | They were originally called "Faith No Man" and went through numerous singers, one of them having a huge ego. When that one left, Chuck Mosley joined. WIthout the jerk at the helm, the band decided to rename themselves "Faith No More" to kind of poke fun at the last guy who was no longer with the band. | Dr. Faustus | ||
Faith No More | Originally called Faith No Man. After firing one of their first lead singers (Mike Morris AKA "The Man") they changed their name to Faith No More seeing as "The Man" was essentially "no more." | Just a Fan | ||
Faithless | As a Nicheren Shoshu Buddhist, Maxi Jazz's strong beliefs and the band's own strong individual beliefs, lead to the name Faithless (Source: Reverence CD booklet). | Jesse | ||
Fak3out | Fak3out was named after a song that the lead singer, Andrea, wrote when he was a kid. It was about skateboarding. | Delilah | ||
Falco | Named after East German ski jumper Falko Weissflogg. | Bobo | ||
falco | Bobo is entirely wrong. the name of the east german ski jumper is jens weissflog. | rajendren | ||
The Fall | named after the book by philosopher Albert Camus | Agent Doug | ||
Fall of Icarus | Daedalus and his son Icarus were imprisoned inside a massive labrynth in Crete. The father made them each a pair of wings, and with these they were able to escape. Daedalus warned his son, “Don’t fly too high or the sun will melt the wax on your wings and you will fall. Follow me closely. Do not set your own course.” But Icarus became so exhilarated by his ability to fly, he forgot the warning and followed his own course instead. He flew too high, the wax melted, and Icarus fell down into the sea and drowned. | Pete | ||
The Fall of Troy | The band flipped open a history book and randomly pointed at places until they got a name they liked. Also how they got their original name, 30 years war. | Dustin | ||
Fall Out Boy | I just need to clear this up. When they decided on the name, it was not because they were "The Simpsons" obsessive. They did not know about the Millhouse thing. At their second show, a fan shouted it out. They then kept the name. The fan most likely did get his idea from the Simpsons though. | Kelsey | ||
Fall Out Boy | They were playing a their second gig and still didn't have a name for the band so they asked the crowd and one kid shout out "Fall Out Boy" and so they decided they would use that name. | Kaulfuss | ||
Fall Out Boy | It was shouted to them at their second show after they asked the crowd what their name should be. They didn't know it had anything to do with The Simpsons, and the guy wasn't drunk. | Jessi | ||
Fall Out Boy | The previous entry is incorrect. I read this on their official website. They said that at one of their first gigs in the Chicago area, they still had no name, and asked the audience to give them suggestions. One kid yelled "FALL OUT BOY!" and it stuck after a few shows under that name. | Douglas | ||
Fall Out Boy | Both of these ideas are correct, but they forgot to mention one thing. The kid got the name from a character on The Simpsons. Millhouse's superhero alias is Fall Out Boy. | xCaptEmoBoyx | ||
Fall Out Boy | The band is obssessed with the Simpsons, and on one of the episodes Millhouse becomes an actor in a movie and his character's name in that movie is Fall Out Boy. | alex | ||
Fall Out Boy | Before they had a name, they were playing a show and asked the crowd what their name should be and some drunk guy yelled out '"FALL OUT BOY!" and it stuck. The drunk guy got it from a superhero on the Simpsons. | bibble | ||
Fall Out Boy | Radioactive man's sidekick in 'The Simpsons' is called Fall Out Boy. | JOnny | ||
Fall Out Boy | This band I've heard many of times on MTV, and VH1, and Fuse, have said they were performing a concert and they didn't have a name, and they asked the audience what their name should be. This one person said Fall Out Boy, and they liked the name, so that's how they got their name. | Punkgal | ||
Family Force 5 | Family Force 5 (often abbreviated FF5, formerly known as The Phamily and The Brothers) is a crossover crunk rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. According to an interview, Derek Mount stated "There is a major revolution taking place in this thing that we call 'Christian music,' and Family Force 5 is honored to be a part of it." Before the band chose the name Family Force 5, they had taken on the name "The Phamily". They had to change it later due to copyright issues with Prince's band, The Family.* The band is made up of three brothers, Solomon, Jacob and Joshua, are all three sons of Jerome Olds, and two friends, Nathan Currin and Derek Mount. | Watching and Waiting | ||
Fanny | The band claims the name referred to a woman's spirit, but their records usually showed the women in butt accentuating tight bell bottom pants. | Bobo | ||
Fastball | Fastball is The name of their favorite porn flick, apparently | Melissa | ||
Fastball | The name of their favorite porn flick. | Bobo | ||
Faster Pussycat | After the Russ Meyer movie "Faster Pussycat Kill! KIll!" | Bobo | ||
Fastway | The original line-up for this band included former Motorhead guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clark and a drummer named Pete Way (who belonged to some other band previously but I can't remember which now). Pete never joined the project, rather he formed his own band called Waysted, but Fast Eddie kept the name. | sbaraldi | ||
Fat Boy Slim | Norman wanted a name to contradict the aspects of the world and what better than 'Fat Boy Slim' | The Gurl who got away with Frankie Muniz | ||
Fat Mattress | Noel Redding's new bandmates thought it was rather fitting, as his reputation as a cheap skin-flint while he played bass for The Jimi Hendrix Experience was well known. He probably came by it honestly, as niether he nor Mitch Mitchell ever saw a whole lot of growth in the bank-book while they backed a true legend | princejellyfish | ||
Fat Tuesday | The day before Ash Wednesday, the last day of Mardi Gras, and, I am told, a paid holiday for citizens of New Orléans. | Bobo | ||
Fatboy Slim | It is a cross between the names of a jazz star and a famous pimp. | tt | ||
Fatboy Slim | It's named after some jazz musician | ww's sketcher | ||
Fatima Mansions | It's in Dublin. I live near to it. It's now being demolished. | johng | ||
The Fatima Mansions | Fatima Mansions was the name of a rundown housing project somewhere in Eire - either in Dublin, where they recorded, or in Cork. | zqxvk | ||
FBI | It stands for founded by idiots because they are a bunch of idiots | henessy | ||
Fear | The name Fear came from Lee Ving's stage fright in the early days. | Slappy Mulligan | ||
Fear Before The March Of Flames | From a Colorado newspaper headline about brush fires endangering people and property. | Dan | ||
Feeder | Originally called Reel, they changed their name to Feeder, apparently after Grant Nicholas' goldfish. | Stuart Johnson | ||
The Feldons | From Barabara Feldon of "Get Smart" fame. The guys were on tour lying around in a hotel room when an old rerun of "Get Smart" came on; and they changed their name a few weeks later! | Jamie | ||
Fenix Down | The band looked through a list of Final Fantasy spells and chose Fenix Down, which is an item that brings people back to life. | Mark | ||
Fenix TX | They were originally called RiverFenix, after the late actor River Pheonix. The actor's family forced them to change their name, so they dropped the River and added TX, as they are from Texas. | GTT | ||
Fenix Tx | the band was originally called RIVER FENIX ! When the actor River Phoenix died, the band had to change their name and since they were from texas they decided to call themselves fenix tx | corey fowler | ||
Fenix TX | I think it's something to do with the band's being from Texas. But Phoenix is of course in Arizona. | ryanguitarist | ||
FFH | It's an acronym for Far From Home. | ArtisticConcepts | ||
FFH | When they first became a group, they were far away from their hometown. FFH stands for Far From Home. It also doubles as Faith for/from Him (FFH is a christian group) | Ka | ||
FFH | Naturally, it stands for Future Farmers of Hamerica. | Rob Ert | ||
FFH | This Christian band picked ' Far From Home' for two reasons; First, they are far from their physical home from a lot of touring, second, they are far from their home in eternity with Jesus. | Roger | ||
Fields of the Nephilim | From Genesis 6 of the Bible. | Monseignore Laszlo, SubGothius | ||
Fig Dish | This Chicago based band based their name on the German phrase 'Fich Dich'. I don't need to tell you what that means in English, or Finnish, either. | Bobo | ||
Fightstar | The name "Fightstar" is derived from the film "Fight Club", the band member's favourite movie, and Dogstar, the band of Keanu Reeves. | XellD | ||
Filter | Filter got their name based on the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, who stated that the mind acts like a filter between the material world and consciousness, so perception is reality. | Ben | ||
Fin.K.L. | Fun Killing Liberty (lost in interpretation, the "u" became an "I"... | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
Fine Young Cannibals | One of the guys in the band picked up a movie guide and opened it up to a random film. It came up on "All the Fine Young Cannibals" starring Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood. | plasket | ||
Finger 11 | When the band was sitting down trying to come up with a good name, the guitarist came up with a stupid name and the singer gave him the 2 middle fingers right next to each other, which makes the number 11. | Joshinator | ||
Finger 11 | finger Eleven was originally called Rainbow Butt Monkeys, but their record label felt that some radio stations might find this offensive. So as a result they, changed their name to a portion of the male anatomy. | Gordon | ||
Finger Eleven | Just clearing that up "Fact 7: Finger Eleven means more than you think. Scott: ?Finger Eleven? has NOTHING to do with your penis. It?s a lyrical fragment from a song called ?Thin Spirits? (from Finger Eleven?s debut Tip). It's really about personal choice based on instinct, despite consequences or outside opinions." | William | ||
Finger Eleven | It's when you are flipping someone off with both hands. Makeing a eleven with your middle fingers. At least that is what the band said in an interview on 94.1 JJO. | Kyle Brooks | ||
Finger Eleven | Originally comes from the lyrics to an early version of their song, "Thin Spirits". When everything is pointing you in one direction, but your mind/intstinct points you in another, that's finger eleven. | Chrystal | ||
Finger Eleven | It refers to a lyric in one of their songs...its the finger in the back of your head, or subconscious, that points you in the right direction. Despite what most people think, Finger Eleven does not refer to a penis. | Chris | ||
Finger Eleven | Human beings have ten fingers on their hands, so Finger Eleven is in reference to that other "finger" that lies in the genital area of males. | Ben | ||
Finger Eleven | There is this disorder in which humans have six fingers (including their thumb) on their hands instead of five. So if you have six fingers on one hand and five on the other, the extra finger is none other than "Finger Eleven." | Alan the Ottoman | ||
Fingers Out | The famous 1970s northeast Cumbrian pub band was originally going to be called by two short words beginning with the letters F and O (the second word being "off"). In view of the occasional family nature of some of the band's venues the letters FO were filled out to read "Fingers Out" (moderately downmarket venues) or "Friesian Oysters" (Young Farmers Club dances). Paul Sanders now owns the rights to the name "Fingers Out", but the band's voluminous back catalog is under the control of the lead singer, Mike Wilson. | Pieface | ||
Fiona Apple | Similar to Cat Stevens, this is just a solo artist not quite using her real name. Apple is her middle name; her last name was hyphenated (Maggert-something. I don't quite recall) and Fiona Apple just sounded better. | Joe H | ||
A Fire Inside | commonly know as AFI. their original name was a fire inside your heart but it then got shortened down to a fire inside and then even shorter to AFI. | AGENT HAVOK | ||
Firefall | Rick Roberts named his band after a tradition at Yosemite National Park where a woodpile was set on fire, then pushed off a cliff, forming flaming cascades. | MOR | ||
fIREHOSE | Take they're name from Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues | Bobo | ||
fIREHOSE | Just wanted to add that the reverse capitalization comes specifically from the proto-music video for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' that appears in the D.H. Pennebaker Dylan documentary, 'Don't Look Back.' Dylan holds up a bunch of signs--the 'Mediate' portion of INXS' 'Need you Tonight/Mediate' video is an homage/parody/something of the Dylan video. | kookbox | ||
Fish | Nickname aquired due to habit of spending hours in the bath. | Jim Annison | ||
fish | Fish - former Marillion lead singer (derek dick) he received the nickname from his landlord becase he used to spend hours taking long baths in the bathtub. | maurício fleury | ||
Fish | The former lead singer from Marillion used to spend so much time in the bath at his college digs that his landlady used to refer to him as fish. | Paul Knight | ||
Fitz & The Tantrums | Named after the lead singer and founder Michael Fitzpatrick.. A tantrum is a synonym for "fit", meaning a violent, angry outburst. | Mary Wanna | ||
Five | The FIVE members of the band were placed in a hotel room by the record company until they came up with a name that would reflect their artistic flare, after two solid weeks in the room with no outside contact the boys finally emerged to announce that after great deliberation and many alternative names (4&1 - 2&3 - 3&2 - 1&4) they settled for FIVE!!!! | Gezza | ||
Five Eight | This is the average height of all the band's members! | Lu | ||
Five Finger Death Punch | The name is taken from the ultimate kung fu finishing move, mentioned in the movie Kill Bill, Vol. II | Brett Mohler | ||
Five For Fighting | The lead singer liked hockey (and still does) and knew that if players got in a fight, they were given a penalty of five minutes for fighting, hence "five for fighting." This is how this band got it's name. | Christina & Lisa | ||
Five For Fighting | The lead singers mother walked in on the boys while they were wrestling (yeah right) on the beds (they set them up in the room like WWF) (this was a sin in this household), she couldn't think of anything to say as she was in such disgust , she pointed at her son, pointed outside and said 'five for fighting' - the boys cracked up and it stuck. | Jayle | ||
Five for Fighting | The guys of the band are big hockey fans. The penalty for fighting in NHL Hockey is five minutes, hence "Five for Fighting." | Greg | ||
Five For Fighting | The members of the band liked hockey and one day were playing when two of them got in a fight. The lead singer was one of them and his friends gave him five minutes in the penalty box for fighting. They just picked the name from that. | tbuck | ||
Five Iron Frenzy | Some of the members in the band all roomed together with this guy who was a little paranoid. One night, thinking he might get mugged, he took a golf club with him to defend himself. He called it 'putter mayhem' but Scott looked at it and, noticing that the guy was holding a five iron, said "No, it's more of a five iron frenzy" and the name stuck. | Andromache | ||
Five Iron Frenzy | While in college one of the band members was clowning around in his dorm room by swinging around a five iron. One of his roommates commented that his friend was in a five iron frenzy, thus the origin of the name. | Doc Scott | ||
Five Savage Mikes | Taken from an interview: The group was originally called Backtalk, a name from their band name list that "they all hated the least." Later, when they were recording their second album, they decided to change the name of the band. The name is a combination of the number of microphones they used in the studio on a particular acoustic number (five) coupled with a character named Mike Savage on the short-lived TV show Acapulco Heat. The choice came down to either Five Mikes or the Mike Savage Band. The bass player said, "Why not put them together and be Five Savage Mikes?" When the other band members stopped laughing, it stuck. | j@ckspr@t | ||
The Five Stairsteps | The "Oh, Child" group (4 brothers and a sister whose last name was Burke) got the name from their mother, who declared that they "looked like stairsteps" when they performed. | soul | ||
Flain | the drummer (john) of the indie band "flain" has the last name "flaim"......one day while talikng to the drummer the guitarist (mike) ,acidently called him "flain"...instaed of his real name "flaim.....and that just became the name... | pat | ||
The Flaming Lips | I have no idea where Brian got his bit about 'the clap', i've NEVER heard that one. Eoj is more on point as those are all answers that The Flaming Lips themselves have given (including a supposed dream about kissing the virgin mary in the backseat of a car and getting the sensation that his lips were burning). But the truth is to my knowledge The Flaming Lips have never given a straight answer about the origins of the name because there really isn't any straight answer. They just made it up just like they make up stories about what the name means. Every story is about as unreliable as the next. | Pilot CAN | ||
Flaming Lips | It's from a 60's movie starring Shirley Maclaine called "What A Way To Go!". In one of the fantasy sequences, there's a huge flashing sign to promote a fictitious movie called "Flaming Lips". | Glen Dietrich | ||
The Flaming Lips | Named after either, a drug reference, porn movie, or a dream from one of the band members that had a flaming kiss. | Eoj | ||
The Flaming Lips | The Flaming Lips is the Rolling Stones logo. The lead singer of the Flaming Lips liked the Rolling Stones and adopted the logo as their name. | Jake | ||
The Flaming Lips | It's a reference to "The Clap." Venerial Disease causing itching and redness...On a woman would cause her genitalia to itch and burn thus becoming..."Flaming Lips" | Brian | ||
Flannelmouth | The name of a fish, simply perfect! | Ari Virtanen | ||
Fleetwood Mac | When the band started as a 4-piece they went by the name Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac featuring Jeremy Spencer incorporating the names of all of the band. Eventually it was truncated to the more catchy Fleetwood Mac. Thats what it says in the sleeve notes of the BBC recordings CD anyway. | Matt | ||
Fleetwood Mac | Short for "Fleetwood McVie" for the drummer and bass player. Band founder Peter Green refused to name the band after himself, so it wound up being named after the rhythm section. | Chrys Jordan | ||
Fleetwood Mac | Original leader Peter Green was uncomfortable with his "Guitar God" stature, so he named the band after the rhythm section, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. McVie, ironically, hadn't even joined the band yet. | Greg G. | ||
Fleetwood Mac | According to Mick Fleetwood's autobiography, from label on demo tape container "Fleetwood-MacVie" The lead guitarist slot was experiencing turnover and Lindsay Buckingham/Stevie Nicks hadn't joined yet | David Lewis |
Entries starting with F are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3
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