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Names -> Band Name Origins -> M, Page 1
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).
Latest Entries
Entries starting with M are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4
There are 4775 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| M People | Short for "Mike's People", after Mike Pickering, the band's founder member. | John | ||
| M Three | Because it's a trio and all the members' first names begin with the letter M. | Lefty Lucy | ||
| M.I.L.K. | Made In Lovely Kin | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| M.I.S.O. | MagIc Souls of Oriental | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| M.O.P. | The Mash Out Posse, so named because of their general rowdiness. Able to get any venue they play at reduced to rubble (or mashed out) due to their ability to hype a crowd. | Augustus Del Monte | ||
| M2M | Actually, they first wanted to name it M&M. Though, that would cause too much confusion with Eminem, so they decided to put up a contest on their website... Where indeed someone came up with the name M2M :) | Peter | ||
| M2M | They had a competition on internet, and someone suggested "M2M". | Meepers | ||
| M2M | They were originally called Marit & Marion, but they held a contest at a website, and a girl picked it out, and they liked it, because there is two of them, and their names both start with M. | Chelsei | ||
| M2M | They picked this name because the had a contest on which fan could come up with the coolest band name. One fan sent M2M and they picked it. | Amanda | ||
| M2M | They got their names by taking the first letters of their first names. Marit Larsen and Maron Raven. Add those names together it become M2M, one of the hottest girl singers out there. | Jazmine | ||
| M3 | Three sisters share the same first intiial. | Mccall | ||
| M83 | Named after a spiral galaxy in the constellation Hydra. | Oliver Levy | ||
| Ma-V-Elle | Their name was an acronym formed by the names of the original three members, MArina Davis, LaVina Williams, and MaybELLE Galuvao. | Ra'akone | ||
| Macabre Dream | this band was named after a dream one of the integrants had.. continually dreaming of a slow and painfull death.. this band was originally called beautiful scars.. but changed it after the words were 'too easy to understand' | Desiree | ||
| Machine Gun Kelly | He wanted to name himself after a gangster from the Prohibitation Era because it sounded cool. | TJ | ||
| Machine Head | the tuning pegs on a guitar are called Machine Heads - simple. | System | ||
| Madison Drive | The name came from a a misunderstanding of the true name of a street in Seattle. | Jason | ||
| Madness | They took this name from a classic Prince Buster song. | Bobo | ||
| Madonna | The Name Madonna, It's the name of a virgin in Italy. Madonna's father is Italian and a very religious man, but also, her Mother called Madonna too. | Felipe | ||
| Magnet | Anemic at the age of 13, Even Johansen visited his father's outlandish "Rock 'n' Roll” doctor while on holiday. The doctor sent a young Johansen to a half-Chinese, half-Indian medicine man, who gave him a tattoo of a magnet, colored with "special” ink. After passing out from the pain, Even awoke to find that he was miraculously cured. | Martin | ||
| MAIN | Music Aspire Impression Narrative | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| The Maine | The band The Maine is named after a song by Ivory named 'The Coast of Maine', therefore the band shortened it down to The Maine. | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Malice Mizer | Their name stands for "malicious misery", which Mana (guitar & synth) and Gackt (vocal) both define as "human nature." Then the concept of evil (malice) and tragedy (misery) was born. Mana defines "MALICE MIZER" as "human nature", so the meaning of the band's name is probably the answer to MALICE MIZER's question "What is human?" (which is the foundation of the band's concept). As Ksays, "We have been seeking something which lurks deep inside the human mind." Since Mana formed the band, he was a heavy influence at the start for the type of music MALICE MIZER would play. It started with the fact that he decided his direction in music was not masculine, (like punk, heavy metal), plus he also happened to be listening only to classical music at the time. He was also influenced by the background music of Italian horror movies, and he realised he wanted to play that kind of music because it has slight feelings of heavy metal but has a melody of pathos (like classical music), so it was rather dull and heavy at the same time. He decided he would make a group which played that kind of music. | LadyMizer | ||
| Malice Mizer | It's a shortened form of "Malicious Misery," which Mana believes to be the basis of humanity. | Kontonsama | ||
| Man, Or Astro-Man? | The Japanese classic sci-fi thriller THE HUMAN VAPOR was pitched on the posters with the tagline- "Is He Man? Or ASTRO-MAN?" Clearly, this connection is not a mere coincidence... | Freddie | ||
| Mando Diao | The lead singer saw this name in a dream he had. | Tommy | ||
| The Manhattan Transfer | Took their name from a John Dos Passos novel, they chose it to reflect their New York heritage. | Ra'akone | ||
| Manic Street Preachers | Singer James Dean Bradfield used to busk in the streets of Cardiff, but would not accept any money. Somebody dropped a few coins onto the ground by him and Bradders hurled a tirade of abuse at him. The man replied: "What are you, boyo, some kind of manic street preacher?" (From "Everything - a book about the manics") | Jon the 1 | ||
| Manic Street Preachers | James Dean Bradfield was inspired by a manic street preaching tramp one day. | Bobo | ||
| ManoWar | Manowar was the name of an old battleship , which was heavily armed and protected. | kingfreddys | ||
| Mansun | From an early song by The Verve, "A Man Called Sun". The similarity to famous hippie mind control expert Charlie Manson was no doubt taken into consideration as well. | Bobo | ||
| Marcy Playground | From the actual "Marcy Playground" in Brooklyn, at the intersection of Myrtle, Nostrand, and Marcy Aves | CRG | ||
| Marcy Playground | The members of the band are from the Twin Cities, and named the band after the Marcy Playground near the Marcy Open School in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood of Minneapolis. | JD | ||
| Marcy Playground | The singer used to go to a hippie grade school called Marcy Open School. He was afraid of bullies on the playground. | Bobo | ||
| Marillion | They were called Silmarillion, but decided to change their name. Since they had already printed Silmarillion on one of their guitar cases, they thought the easiest and cheapest route would be to just get rid of the 'Sil' part. Leaving them with Marillion. | Tim | ||
| Marillion | The band took there name from the J.R.R. Tolkien book Silmarillion but decided to drop the Sil. | Pacusher | ||
| Marillion | The band's name was originally Silmarillion, inspired by J.R.R. Tolkein. At an early concert, promoters hung a big banner with the band's name on it over the back of the stage. But a bunch of gear got piled in front of the "Sil," leaving just "marillion." Subsequent (and positive) press coverage referred to the band as Marillion, and the name stuck | Chaim | ||
| Marillion | Inspired by JRR Tolkein's "Silmarillion" and probably modified to avoid copyright problems. | Bobo | ||
| Marilyn Manson | Brian Warner was obsessed with how fake show business was, so he chose two of the most famous fake name, Marilyn Monroe, and Charles Manson, combining them into one. | Ian | ||
| Marilyn Manson | Although the comments about Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson are correct, there is more to the story. In his Autobiography, Manson says that he uses the name as a comment on the status quo, because he chose Marilyn Monroe, whom the world loved, and Charles Manson, whom the world hated. | RedBlade | ||
| Marilyn Manson | The other explanation here is right, but I just wanted to add that Marilyn Manson also chose this name to enforce the theory that society is only obsessed with two powerful things. | RIOT GRRRL | ||
| Marilyn Manson | Bryan Warner, a.k.a. Marilyn Manson, had created this name by combining the names of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. He wanted to come up with the fakiest sounding name, to comment on the world really, by combining the names of Norma Jean Mortensen and Charles Maddox. | Billy Slim | ||
| Marilyn Manson | Brian Warner combined the sexiness of Marilyn Monroe with the psychotic mindset of killer Charles Manson to create his "alter ego". | psycho | ||
| Marilyn Manson | Everyone is failing to remember that Brian Warner's mother also named a rat that was meant to be food for his snake Marilyn. | d | ||
| Marmerlade | were is the group marmerlade. and what were there names | dave lyme | ||
| Maroon 5 | Maroon 5 used to be called Kara's Flowers since the guys were 15 years old and in High School and they have even published an album under that name in 1997 ("The Fourth World"). When that wasn't too successful, the members moved on and went separate ways for some time to go to college. When they got back together and even added a new member (James) they felt that Kara's Flowers were dead and started Maroon 5 - fresh start, fresh name. | easy | ||
| Maroon 5 | Got this from the website. They don't go into much details, only they used to be called Kara's Flowers, the went to college grew older wiser and hear a lot more music. They didn't want to keep the old name they had since they were like 15-years-old so they changed the namer to Maroon 5. | Rockangel@mindless.com | ||
| Maroon 5 | Maroon 5's favorite computer game is Minesweeper. If you have ever noticed then you know that the 5 in minesweeper is MAROON, therefore they came up with their name Maroon 5. | Smart | ||
| Maroon 5 | The reason that I know of, is because they wanted a color but all the primary colors were taken, so they chose Maroon. | Kara | ||
| Maroon 5 | This is just something I heard: Jane of Songs About Jane fame plays a burgundy Rickenbacker bass...Burgundy 5 just doesn't have a nice ring to it and Maroon 5 was born... | Sarah Meseberg | ||
| Maroon 5 | (hint) One of the band members likes playing Minesweeper. | Billy Cake | ||
| Maroon 5 | Some of the band members attended Five Towns College in Long Island, though they did not graduate there. The school's "mascot" is The Sounds, and the colors are Maroon and white. They got "5" from the name of the school, and "Maroon" from the school's colors. | Val | ||
| Maroon 5 | The story about Kara's Flowers is correct, however their record label wanted to call them Maroon. But since their was already a band called Maroon, they added the 5. (This is according to Bob Valentine, James' father, who is my real estate professor at Utah Valley State College) | Q | ||
| Maroon 5 | They won't say. According to Adam Levine, lead singer of the band, speaking during an interview on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, "It will add more mystery to it. If we told you the answer, then it wouldn't have all its... mystique..." He did confirm that it had nothing to do with the fact that Bugs Bunny would call people "maroons" in the original cartoons ("Not even close.") and stated that he did tell Billy Joel "...because he's Billy Joel." So maybe he'll tell you. | Song | ||
| Maroon 5 | James Valentine's father is not a teacher in Utah. He and his family live in Lincoln, Nebraska and he teaches marketing at (among other places) Creighton University in Omaha. | Q is a liar | ||
| Maroon 5 | My friend suggested that they picked Maroon 5 because there are only 4 shades of maroon in standard web pages--maroon 1 through maroon 4. | anon | ||
| Maroon 5 | Actually, I heard that the band took an oath to never tell anyone as to what the origins of Maroon 5 actually are, but maybe that's not accurate. I heard it while listening to the radio. | Darth Purple | ||
| The Mars Volta | The Mars part of the name comes from bandmates Cedric and Omar's "fascination with space and mythology." The Volta part of the name was taken from a book about Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini who described his films as "volta". From page 28 of April 2003 issue of Q Magazine. | krb | ||
| Marshall Tucker Band | Marshall Tucker was a piano tech in Spartanburg, SC, and his business card was inside the piano the band was using. I verified the existence of a piano tech by this name by contacting the then-upervisor of the piano company. | White | ||
| Marshall Tucker Band | Much like the Freddy Jones Band, the MTB named themselves after a non-existent bandleader. | Roderick | ||
| Marshall Tucker Band | One of the salesmen at the car dealership I work at told me that the band saw the name Marshall Tucker on a real estate sign...and the rest is history. | Liz | ||
| The Marshall Tucker Band | "Marshall Tucker" was the name on the key tag attached to the key for an old Spartanburg,SC warehouse they were practicing in. Nobody knows who he was, but lead singer Doug Gray has been called Marshall Tucker by the group's fans. | southern | ||
| Marshall Tucker Band | The guys who were the original Marshall Tucker Band were from a mill village and their music bothered near by residents so they found an old abandoned warehouse out in the country (at least it was the boondocks back then). One day while taking a break, they found a key with the name Marshall Tucker on it and they decided to call the band that since they did not have a name and had been searching for a name. They did not know the history of the name at that point. Marshall Tucker (the man) is alive and well today and he was a blind piano tuner from Spartanburg and that had been his warehouse. The man Marshall Tucker lives in Columbia, SC today. Once the band found out the story and who the name belonged to, they made a trip to Columbia to meet the man. I know this to be true because I am from Spartanburg and Marshall Tucker (the man) was an old family friend and the drummer for the band was a close relative of one of my boys. This is the real true story! | Martha | ||
| Martha and the Vandellas | Martha Reeves took Van Dyke Ave in Detroit and added it to the first name of her favorite singer, Della Reese. | Andrew Thornhill | ||
| Martin's Marvellous Monkeys | Martin the founder and lead song writer of the band looked in the dictionary for a positive work starting with m to go with martin then saw monkey whilst flicking through and it all sounded good together. | Martster | ||
| Marvin Gaye | Larcen Tyler is wrong. Marvin Gaye put an E on the end of his name to further distance himself from his father, whom he hated and who later shot him dead. | No, One Nose! | ||
| Marvin Gaye | As a child he was constantly taunted about his name, so when he started performing, he added the letter 'e' to his last name. | Larcen Tyler | ||
| Mary Mary | The two sisters decided to name themselves from two Mary's in the Bible: Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdelene. | ECRLOT**C-018 | ||
| Mary Prankster | Inspired by Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, who were those hippies known for hosting many Acid Tests in San Francisco. | Bobo | ||
| MaskOT | Mask of Thetis | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Matchbox 20 | As a matter of fact, the story about the jersey is true. The band was in a diner where Paul Doucette worked, and a man came in wearing a softball jersey that had the number 20 on it, and it was so covered up in patches that the only word the band could come see was "matchbox". Rob Thomas did not want to use the name, but Kyle Cook, Brian Yale, Adam Gaynor, and Paul Doucette did, and four beats one. Paul Doucette did replace Adam Gaynor, but Doucette was the drummer, and he switched over to rhythm guitar. Ryan MacMillan replaced Doucette on drums. | Zach | ||
| Matchbox 20 | Rob Thomas was walking down the street and found a matchbox with a cool logo on it. Then he saw a jersey with the number 20."Matchbox 20" | Another_fan | ||
| Matchbox 20 | I don't know for sure but I do know for a fact that Rob Thomas wrote a song called "Matchbox 20" around the time when he was in Tabitha's Secret. | Joey | ||
| matchbox 20 | The band was in their 20's when they formed it, but now that their age is over 20 they've changed their name, spelling the number instead. They're now "matchbox twenty." | rhaine | ||
| Matchbox 20 | the submission that claims Paul Doucette thought up the name can't be correct as he wasn't in the original band line-up, he joined after Adam Gaynor left in 2005 | FP | ||
| Matchbox 20 | Well, it has nothing to do with the little matchbox cars. The band said on the Rosie O'Donnel Show, that every time someone asks them how they got their name, they make up a story. But for real they said they just made it up! | jessigal | ||
| Matchbox Twenty | MB20's drummer, Paul Doucette, used to be a waiter. One day, this guy walked into the restaurant where Paul worked, wearing this shirt that had the number 20 on it, and all these patches. The only one he could really read said "matchbox". He thought "matchbox 20" sounded cool together and would make an excellent name for a clothing line. Other names the band was considering: "Joanie Loves Chachie" and "Big Shoe Spiders". | dearjoan | ||
| The Matches | They were originally called The Locals but a band by the same name in Chicago threatened to sue, and that's how they got their name of their first album E.Von Dahl Killed The Locals. Yvonne Doll was the lead singer of the other band. | hannah | ||
| Matching Mole | When the Anglo/French art-rock band Soft Machine split up in the 60s some of them ended up in Gong and the remainder formed a new band, Matching Mole. Matching Mole is the phonetically anglicised version of the French translation of Soft Machine... Machine Molle. | Neil Taylor | ||
| Matching Mole | Soft Machine were playing in France, and heard their band announced as 'Machin Moule' ie. in French. I believe that part of the band then reformed as 'Matching Mole' . | Az Diggory | ||
| Matthew Good Band | This is how the lead singer Matthew Good said how they got the name , "Originally we weren't really a band. It was just me, and the guys came in and played because they were friends of mine. We put MGB on the CD, but on the radio they said 'Matthew Good Band.' So people would go to the record store and it'd be confusing, so we just rectified it by putting Matthew Good Band on the record. We just thought we'd write some better songs and then change the name of the band. But it did so well, we were stuck with it." | Marketa | ||
| Matz Messengers | The band's very talented lead singer and guitarist Ben Bareham often spent a lot off time on MSN messenger as a youngster. While being a huge fan of rock band Muse, he idolised their lead Matt Bellamy, and creating very similar music and style, he thought that he would become Matz (Matt's) Messenger to the world. | Neo | ||
| Max Webster | A Canadian band led by Kim Mitchell that had hits with Paradise Skies and 1,000,000 Vacations, the members took the name after looking through a local phone book. | Matt | ||
| Max Webster | Kim Mitchell (lead singer) finally put the question to rest by reporting the true origins of the name on the message board of his own website. From his posting: "Max Webster's name came from Mike Tilka, the bass player. He was in a band called Family At Mac's, and they did a song called 'Webster'. We were looking for a Jethro Tull type name...a real human name but nobody in the band with that name." | Dean | ||
| Maximum the Hormone | When asked about the group's name in an interview, Maximum the Ryo-kun stated "Take it as you like, it means anything from the Japanese cuisine for cooking animal innards to the sensation of the maximum amount of your hormones coming to the boil! Although when we go abroad people think we’re just some sorta sexual energy drink." "Hormone" (or horumon) is a style of yakiniku (Japanese BBQ) where many of the typically discarded internal organs are grilled in bite sized pieces and eaten. | Sarah D. | ||
| Mayhem | When Ostein Arseth and fellow band members were forming Mayhem, they were stuck for a name. So they took their name from a song by the legendary band "Venom". | James | ||
| Mayhem | the name is taken from the Venom song, "Mayhem with Mercy", the "masters" of Euronymous | The Cunt | ||
| Mayhem | from the venom song "mercy with mayhem" | md | ||
| MBLAQ | Music Boys Live in Absolute Quality | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| MC 5 | Rob Tyner named the band the MC 5 because it sounded like the name of a car part - the Motor City part of the name was a coincidence after the fact. | Chris Gansz | ||
| MC 900 Ft Jesus | From an Oklahoma televagalist that claimed to have seen a 900 foot Jesus in a vision. | Tim | ||
| Mc Fly | they got ther name from the film 'Back to the Future'. because one of the main charactors is called George McFly. | naz | ||
| MC Hawking | His real name is Stephen William Hawking and 'cause he is so wicked smart; when he's not playing cards games with his peoples in the future, rolling-up, or just generally seeking a Unified theory of everything, he raps. He is still Wak though. Check out DJ Crick. | A Dope Biologist at the Institute | ||
| MC5 | The band liked the name for some reason before thinking up the acronym "Motor City Five" (they were 5 loud hippies from Detriot). | Bobo | ||
| MCA - McDonald's Chef Assistants | There were chef assistants in McDonald's. | Anti-Crazy Frog | ||
| McFly | Taken from the name "George McFly", who is a character from the film "Back To The Future". Also, their music is infuenced by Busted, who's song "Year 3000" is also inspired by Back To The Future. | rok iz kool | ||
| McFly | The name comes from George McFly from "Back to the future". They are not influenced by Busted. Lead singer Tom Fletcher wrote "Crashed the Wedding", "Who's David" and "Thunderbirds" for Busted. | Umma | ||
| McFly | Named after Marty McFly from Back To The Future. (I may mention that Busted's Year 3000 is based on Back To The Future, and McFly are based on Busted, probably why they chose something from Back To The Future" | Crosby Hoku | ||
| McFly | They got their name from Back To The Future and all the band thought it was a good idea except Danny, who only went along with the name when he saw the truck with D.Jones on the side of it (as this is his name) | mick_aloud | ||
| MCSG- 80075/ Cuts Unleashed | Created the soundtrack for Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 for Dreamcast. When they walked into Sega Studios, they saw the first line of the computing code for Sonic | Ks290 |
Entries starting with M are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4
New entries in this section are currently reviewed by Brian Kelly. Previous editors (if any) are listed on the editors page.
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