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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).

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There are 4775 Band Name Origin entries on the site.

Name	Origin	Submitted by:
N Sonic	Neo Sonic	Robert D. Arndt Jr.
N'SYNC	The last letters of the first names of the band members	Shadow Phoenix
N'Sync	The guys didn't know what to call themselves, so Justin's mom had the idea of using some part of each of their names. Finally, she came up with 'N Sync: JustiN, ChriS, JoeY, LansteN, and JC. Odd coincidence, ain't it? :)	backstreetgrl
N'sync	one of the guys moms put the last letters of their names together and it spelled nsync. Justin, Chris, Joey, Lansten, & J.C.	Alisha
N'SYNC	From the last letter of every band members name JustiN ChriS JoeY LansteN JC Lance was going to be replaced by JasoN, the second N, but then Justin held up for him, and he becamse LANSTEN for the band.	Pinzz
N'SYNC	The 'N' is from Lance, whose name is James LanceteN Bass. Lanceten is his middle name, not a nickname.	Suzanne
N'SYNC	Justin's mom came up with the name because of how they dance and sing in sync. Also the last letter in each of their names spell out N SYNC. JustiN, ChriS, JoeY, LansteN, JC. Note: Lansten is Lance's nickname so that it would work. Also there was a member before Lance named JasoN.	Amanda Shannon
*NSYNC**	I heard this on an interview from justin. he said that one day they were singing for his parents, and his dad said "Wow, you guys are really in sync." and the name stuck.	Me
*NSync**	The star is an important part of the branding. It was suggested by Uri Geller !	Jasclar
N-E-R-D	N-E-R-D stands for No One Ever Really Dies. The guys in the group believe this to be true and that everyone has an energy that can't be destroyed and that everyone has a soul that has to go somewhere and that it's not really their soul that has dies but it is just the body they were in that died. The soul whether to heaven or hell goes somewhere.	Yungg T
N.E.R.D	N.E.R.D consists of Pharrell Williams,Chad Hugo (who are both the producing duo called the neptunes) and Shay. N.E.R.D stands for No one Ever Really Dies there albm in search of... is fantastic	bob
N.E.R.D.	The bands name stands for No one Ever Really Dies.	J
N.E.X.T.	New EXperiment Team	Robert D. Arndt Jr.
N.W.A.	It means N****s With Attitudes.	Flava flav
N.W.A.	N.W.A. stands for N****z With Attitude.	Marc
Nabero	According to the original band members, the name is issued by putting the two first letters of the names "Namur" "Belgium"" Rock" together.	Baloo
Naglfar	Naglfar means "wraith ferry". It was a ship in Norse Mythology built from the fingernails of the dead. Hence, another study states it translates to "nail ferry", demanding that no dead body would be buried without having cut its nails. During the battle, Ragnarok, Naglfar was freed from land by a flood and sailed the battlefield of Vagrond and led Hymir and his evil army of giants against the gods at the end of time. If they lost, a new world would arise from the sea.	Kyle
Naglfar	Naglfar means "wraith ferry". In Norse mythology, it was a ship, built from finger and toe nails of the of the dead. Hence, other studies would conclude that it translates to "nail ferry", demanding that the dead would have their nails cut before being buried. Naglfar would freed from the land by a flood and sailed to Vagrond, a vast plain where the battle, Ragnarok, would be fought, by Hymir and his hoard of evil giants against the gods at the end of time. If the gods won Ragnarok, a new world would arise from the sea.	Kyle
The Naked And Famous	The band took their name from a line in Tricky's "Tricky Kid". The line in question was previously used the the Presidents of the United States of America song "Naked And Famous".	Brian Kelly
Naked Lunch	allthough nobody knows this excellent austrian band, there are rumours, that they are having some succes in London- the took their inspiration to the name by the famous William S. Burroughs Book "Naked Lunch"	Ati
Naked Raygun	After turning down "Dog At Large," and "When The Screaming Stops," the last option was "Naked Raygun." No rhyme or reason, just good heads prevailing. Both of the other ideas were recycled into song titles.	Roderick
The Napoleons	Originally intended for a 'garage super group' with the 'napoleons' (meaning: leading members) of a number of leading Dutch garage bands (which never happened), singer/guitaristEric Geevers kept the name for yet another cool ramshackle beat trio.	Pete
Narsha	Korean language- "To fly"	Robert D. Arndt Jr.
NAS	his realname is Nasir Jones thus "Nas" was born	zoemills
Nas	Nasir was named by his father's best friend. The name means "Helper and Protector" in Arabic.	Geezus
Nashville P****	FROM THE TED NUGENT ALBUM DOUBLE LIVE GONZO RECORDED LIVE IN NASHVILLE, TN... BEFORE PERFORMING THE SONG "WANG DANG SWEET POONTANG", TED DEDICATES THE SONG TO ALL THE "NASHVILLE P****"...	KEITH
Nasty O'Kool	A friend of the band, then called The Lucerne Brothers, was always bumming cigarettes from the lead guitarist, a musician by the name of Herb. Herb smoked Kool cigarettes. The friend that was bumming the cigarettes would say , "How 'bout one of those nasty old Kools?". So we decided to call the band Nasty O'Kool	King B
Natalia	Named after a Jackie Chan film.	36 Crazyfists
NATAS	Originally thought to be "satan" spelled backwards but is an acronym for "Nation Ahead of Time And Space"	andre1127
Natasha	From the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon, the bad guys were Boris and Natasha. They originally dressed like spies and the lead singer Sarana VerLin was female, so they called it Natasha.	Brendan
Nazareth	It was part of the first line from The Band's hit, "The Weight".	oldschool
Nazareth	Named after an ancient town in Israel.	Mark
Nazz	The band (which launched the career of Todd Rundgren) derived its name from a Yardbirds song, "The Nazz Are Blue". The word originally came from the title of a Lord Buckley monologue.	Todd W. Zimmerman
Ne-P	New Passion	Robert D. Arndt Jr.
Ned's Atomic Dustbin	Named after an episode from seminal BBC radio show- "The Goons" from the 1950's, written by Spike Milligan (genius).	david tynan
Ned's Atomic Dustbin	They were named after an "Atomic Dustbin" belonging to a Goon Show (BBC Radio show) character called Neddy Seagoon (Ned) Played by the late Harry Secombe. Apparently Jonn Penney (lead singer) remebers it from his childhood as his mum was a big fan of the Goon Show.	Lozwalker
Negativland	Negativland is the name of a track on the first album of the krautrock band "Neu!".	Tom
Neil Logan & Young Melons	Neil Logan was Phys.Ed. teacher at their school in Australia, who had a penchant for accidentally exposing his testicles to students. Young Melons refers to teenage girls' breasts and also from a TV talent show hosted by a dude called Johnny Young called "Young Talent Time. Their first album is called "Young Melon Time".	$tav
The Nekromantix	They copied their name from the 1987 German movie "Nekromantik".	John
The Nekromantix	The name of their bassist/lead singer is Kim Nekroman, hence "The Nekromantix".	Rob
Nelly	His real name is Cornell Haynes, but his nickname was Nelly Nel [a play on Cornell], and everyone eventually just called him Nelly, so he used it.	Curtis
Nelly	Well his name is Cornell and there was this guy in sports named Nellie(i think that how he spelled it) and maybe instead Nelly just added a Y instead of ie and thats how his name was made.	IvonaHumpalot
Nelly Furtado	Well, it's just the name she was born with, but it turns out that "Furtado" is Portuguese for "stolen".	TJdude825
Nerf Herder	One of the band members had a lot of Nerf balls as a kid and would hoard them all in one place or "herd" them.	RobAustin
Nerf Herder	From the band's mp3.com site, they took their name "from an epithet in one of the many spats between Princess Leia and Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. " The exact line from the movie goes something like "Why, you stuck up...half-witted...scruffy-looking nerf-herder!"	Mopmonster
Neutral Milk Hotel	Jeff Mangum, the frontman and singer/songwriter of the group, had an early collaboration with another member of the band and called themselves Milk, after the name "Neutral Milk Hotel," which Jeff had used in school for various purposes. When they found out another band was called Milk, they decided to use the entire name, Neutral Milk Hotel. Jeff also, at the time, came up with the name "Olivia Tremor Control," which wound up being the name of another band on Elephant 6 Recording Company.	AtlantisX
New Edition	This group was named this to insinuate that they were a new edition of the Jackson 5. They were five in number and Ralph Tresvant possessed that high pitched singing voice for which Michael was known. However, it ended up that Bobby is more on the crazy side like Michael not Ralph. Let's hope Bobby does not reach the heights of delusional behavior that Michael to which Michael has managed to ascend.	Candi Girl
New FO	New Five Order	Robert D. Arndt Jr.
New Found Glory	One of the band members came up with the name when he was working at Chili's. They thought it sounded awesome.	LooGiE
New Found Glory	Lead singer Jordan Pundik and guitarist Steve Klien were best friends who, back in Coral Springs Florida worked in Red Lobster. Jordan came up with the name. It first started out as "A New Found Glory" but after the release of their first full length album, the band decided to drop the "A" because some people would get confused as to which letter it would be under in music stores and because no one wants to say "ANFG"...so "NFG" is easier.	OCDProcks
New Found Glory	Roxy_4 is wrong. They were originally the Up Town Kids, if i'm not mistaken. But then the group was sitting in a restraunt one day, (not too sure if Cyrus was there..) and Chad and Jordan came up with "A New Found Glory." and then the band changed theyre name to that, because it was much better than the original name. Over the years, they just dropped the "A" at the beginning, and now they're New Found Glory.	Timantha. (not my real name, :P)
New Found Glory	Ian (bassist) and Jordan (lead vocals) worked together at Red Lobster (i think) well one night they were cleaning and trying to figure out a band name when one of them randomly of A New Found Glory, it stuck, but instead of saying ANFG, they took off the A and was left with NFG New Found Glory	Rinn
New Found Glory	Well, Jordan and one of the other guys in the band worked together and they were thinking about what to name thier band, and "New Found Glory" popped into Jordan's head for some odd reason.	Roxy_4
New Found Glory	Originally called "a new found glory". aparently jordan and one of the other guys worked together and they decided to go into a band with a few other guys from their high school, but they just couldn't think of a name form the band . So one day they decided to write a few random words on paper and put them into a hat and hope what they chose made sense.they drew 4 pieces of paper which read , A NEW FOUND GLORY, in the end they droped the a and just stuck with the neew found glory part. make sense?	AGENT HAVOK
New Found Glory	Jordan and Steve worked at Red Lobster, and they were thinking of random names and writing them down. They thought of A New Found Glory. They liked it because it kind of symbolized the whole band coming together and being friends etc. They dropped the A because when people were looking for cataloged stuff they wouldnt know whether it was under A or N. When its always under one letter its easier to find. Also, when people asked what their band name was and they said "A New Found Glory" people didn't understand them, "New Found Glory" was easier to understand. Lastly, they started going by NFG, and ANFG didnt look right.	anna
New Kids On The Block	Manager Maurice Starr originally gave the group the name Nynuk. Nynuk was an exclamation from the Three Stooges and the name of the dog in the movie The Lost Boys, but not even the former members know where Starr came up with this name. When the group signed to Columbia Records, executives insisted that the group get a new name, for obvious reasons. �New Kids On The Block,� an introductory rap co-written by Donnie Wahlberg and Maurice Starr, was one of the first songs recorded. This was suggested and used as the new name although Starr didn�t think it was catchy enough. The five word phrase was later shortened to NKOTB.	Suzanne
New Kids On The Block	Just a note: The band's original name NYNUK was chosen by the band's manager (Maurice Starr) as a play on the title of a 1922 faux documentary called "Nanook of the North".	memoria
New Model Army	Named after the newly formed roundhead army of Cromwell, during the English civil war. The new model bit coems fromthe fact that they were well trained and disciplined, unlke the royalist army.	Gyrth
New Order	Depending on how you look at it, on 1993's New Order Story video, Barney and Gillian cast jokes about the Nazi reference thing, but then got serious and said that they looked at the name as a logical thing	melshgeek
New Order	New Order's manager Rob Gretton was reading an article in a newspaper, of which the headline was "The New Order of Kampuchean Liberation". It came down to a choice of the various people's suggestions, with some of the others being "Barney Steven and Peter" and "The Witchdoctors of Zimbabwe". Between the four of them (Barney, Steven, Peter, and Gretton), New Order drew 2-2 with The Witchdoctors of Zimbabwe. It is said that only Peter Hook's refusal to be part of a band called The Witchdoctors of Zimbabwe swung it in the favour of New Order. And the rest is history...	Mike
New Order	Another thinly-veiled Nazi reference. C.f. Joy Division.	Roderick
New Order	Originally Joy Division, the band swore that if one of the members were to leave, the name would change. When the lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide the band changed names... the new name "New Order" seems pretty self-explanatory.	Kitty
New Order	From a newspaper article about the "new order of architecture".	Jenny Turner
New York Dolls	Guitarist Sylvain Sylvain told it to us at a concert where he shared double billing with Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols. He said that a place near where he and Johnny Thunders worked was a toy repair factory named "New York Dolls Hospital". That's what he said, "it's the fucking truth". Wikipedia also corroborates this.	Planet Jet Boy Needs A Planet Jet Girl
NewBorn	wow no one picked them! they got there name from rededicating their life to the lord!	Angel
News	An acronym of North, East, West, and South	Marie
Newsboys	Their first album was titled "Read All About It".	Enzan
NEXT	R&B group "NEXT" created their name through the acronym "Nobody Ever eXpected This".	aNiMeMaN14
The Nice	Quoting Keith Emerson's autobiography (since they were originally a backing band for P.P. Arnold), Emerson is narrating the whole thing, but this is Arnold speaking: '"Man, Lord Buckley is so cool. He speaks in the verncaular, like, he does this one sketch about God and Moses where he refers to God as The Naz..." "What's a Naz?" asks Lee "Hell, the Naz is Naz, or you'd prefer in your Englishness, Nice. You should call yourself that," said P.P. "The Nice, yeah that's real good," she teased, cracking up...." And so it stuck.	progforever
The Nice	Taken from the city in France.	Goldie
Nickelback	According to Kasey Kasem on America's Top 40: The band is Canadian and on the back of the Canadian nickel is a beaver. So the term is slang for beaver.	Scratchen Sniff
Nickelback	Its a term for a gram of dope.	Justin
Nickelback	Are you guys all insane? A NICKELBACK is the fifth defensive back on the field when a football team calls a DIME or NICKEL package for their defense. Ordinarily, the defensive backfield of a football team consists of two cornerbacks and two safeties, but in certain situations, an additional corner will be called into action - that guy is called the "Nickelback."	Jay
Nickelback	Nickelback originaly couldn't think of a band name so Chad Kroeger, the lead singer asked his brother for a name and he worked at a coffe place and the coffees costed $1.95. He always had to get a nickel back! so he said nickel back and so on and so forth.	Max
Nickelback	A member of the band worked in Starbucks and everybody got a nickel back as change.	Crazy T
Nickelback	"We couldn't decide what to call ourselves and after recording our first songs, we still didn't have a name. I was working as a cashier at Starbucks Coffee and let's just say... coffee was $1.45". The bass player Mike used to work at Starbucks coffee and spent many days saying "here's your nickel back."	Christian B
Nickelback	Chad Kroger's brother was employed at a coffee shop and everything was priced with 95 cents change so every customer got a "nickel back" and Chad heard this and named his band as such.	Bordburn
Nickelback	The guitarist (I honestly don't know his name) worked at a local Starbucks in Vancouver for a while in between recording their first album. Any given day he slaved over making customers a mocha (for exactly $4.95), he would say, "Here's your nickel back!" There's your band name origin. (Alan Cross - Explore Music)	Darby Hen
Nickelback	Where the band members worked, I think Starbucks, they would give change saying 'Here's your nickel back.'	cmor
Nickelback	The bassist, Mike had once worked at starbucks coffee. Every coffee that he sold, he had to give a nickel back. Don't laugh, this is how they really got their name!!.	Gavdogz
Nickelback	ok the reasons ive seen that are for this bands name are wrong! (well one is sorta right!) any way.. when the band moved from edminton to vancouver (coz there was a bigger music back ground in vancouver) Chad Kroegers borther mike kroeger (nickelbacks bassist) got a job in Starbucks.when mike was serveing people and he was gving out the change he used to say to the customer "theres your Nickel back". Chad and Ryan noiced this and when it came to thinking of a name mike surgested ot and they all liked it.	caz nickelback girl
Nickelback	They got the name when Mike Kroeger was working at Starbucks, selling coffee for $1.45 NOT $1.95. and Mike would have to, "give a nickel back."	yeah right 2008
Nickelback	The band members were eating at a restaurant and on the menu, eveything was priced, $1.95, $2,95, $3.95, $4.95, ect... So, no matter what you ordered, you always got a nickel back.	Tigerlily
Nickelback	the band got thier name coz wehn they moved to vancouver mike got a job in a cafe! when mike was working on the tills he always said "heres your Nickelback" when he was giving the customers back thier change.	Nickelback girl
Nickelback	They were in a cafe (sorry i can't remember which one) and the lady at the counter, said here's a nickel back, and they kept it as their name.... i'm not positive if its true but i read it in a magazine.	Lin
Night Manager	According to an interview in one music video, the band's name was taken from an unpublished Hunter S. Thompson novel about a night manager in a strip club in San Francisco.	The Skuz
Night Ranger	Originally called themselves "Ranger," but found another band with that name that already had a record deal. They had written a song titled "Night Ranger" and decided to add the Night.	Jeff
Nightwish	'Nightwish' was the name of one of the band's early songs, which was never released on a full-length album. Tuomas Holopainen, the founding member of the band, thought that it gave a good description of what the music was about, so it became the band's name.	Nanotechnology
Nile	Not about the legendary Egyptian river, as one might think. Rather, death-metal group Nile was named after Niles, Ohio. The band was known as Killowattage when they played a small club outside of Youngstown. Their manager's description of Niles as a town so boring that he would "rather die than return there" stuck. The mayor of Niles threathened to sue, so they dropped the "s." Hence, Nile.	Jason
Nile	Their songs are mostly about ancient egypt, so they named their band after the Nile River.	Andrew Ivan
Nine Days	From VH-1: A cockroach can live without its head for nine days.	Caffeine Nation
Nine Days	This is how long it took the band to make their first album.	drummerboy
Nine Inch Nails	The submission that Nine Inch Nails got it's name from the fact that there is enough iron in a person to make a Nine Inch Nail is incorrect. There is only 3 grams of iron in the human body. A 6 inch nail (the largest I could get data for) weighs 56 grams.	Alex Hagen
Nine Inch Nails	Sole constant member Trent Reznor chose the name because it "could be abbreviated easily" and denied any "literal meaning" to the name.	Robert D. Arndt Jr.
Nine Inch Nails	The nails driven into Chirst's wrists and feet were "Nine Inch Nails	@55I-I0I_3
Nine Inch Nails	According to one legend, Trent Reznor took his band's name from an obscure lyric from the Tori Amos song "Caught a Lite Sneeze": "With their Nine Inch Nails, and little facist panties tucked inside the heart of every nice girl" lending credence to this theory are the fact that they're supposedly great friends, have performed together (Reznor sang backup on Amos' "Past the Mission) and the name of his first major album was also taken from that same song, the line: "Made my own Pretty Hate Machine".	Wintermute
Nine Inch Nails	The frontman, Trent Reznor, tried out hundrets of names before he thought of this one. He liked it because it wasn't all that obvius, it sounded good with bit of mystery and darkness, and the acronym NIN looks really good on the covers of the CDs	Mike
Nine Inch Nails	"Caught A Light Sneeze" by Tori Amos does not contain the words "Nine Inch Nails" and was released in 1996. Pretty Hate Machine was released in 1989. It does mention the words Pretty Hate Machine, but was written seven years after the album was released and was more than likely some reference or joke between Tori and Trent as they are good friends.	Petzombie
Nine Inch Nails	Eidetic was closest when he explained te origin of NIN's name. Trent simply thought it up one day, while living with drummer Chris Vrenna. He wanted something that sounded "hard"... tough as nails. Plus it looked good when written down and could easily be abbreviated in many ways, shapes, and forms. After passing Trent's brutal one-week-test (if a name he thought up didn't sound good after a week, Trent would automatically dismiss it and move on to another one) Nine Inch Nails was accepted. HOWEVER, the stories of the crucifixtion nails, coffin nails, and state of liberty's fingernails are indeed true, but 100% coincidental. This is coming straight from the source (Trent Reznor) himself.	Renholder
Nine Inch Nails	Apparently there is enough iron in the human body to make a nine inch nail. Bizzare.	Ant

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