| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
| Ambrosia: |
The members of Ambrosia chose the name because it connotes their vision of their music: all shades, textures, colors and styles. Additionally, ambrosia is the food of the Gods in Greek mythology. |
| Asia |
Their name was suggested by the band's manager. They wanted the name to cause people to wonder what it meant and who the group was. |
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| Black Sabbath: |
They chose their name from song by drummer Terry "Geezer" Butler, inspired by an occult thriller by novelist Denis Wheatley |
| Bauhaus |
They began as Bauhaus 1919, named after the German institute founded that year for the study of art, design, and architecture and known for its development of a style of functional architecture and its experimental use of building materials. Bauhaus is German for "architecture house". |
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| Cabaret Voltaire: |
Taken from Zurich cafe that was the headquarters for the Swiss dadaists leading up to W.W.I. |
| Can |
In Julian Cope's book, Krautrock, he mentions that the word "can" has several meanings in a variety of languages: the Turkish word "can" pronounced "chan", means life or soul; the Japanese word "kan" means feeling or emotion; and the Japanese word "chan' means love when used in salutation. Keyboard player Irmin Schmidt defined "can' as an acronym for Communist, Anarchism, Nihilism. |
| Clannad |
The word clannad is Irish for "family". |
| Cocteau Twins |
The band is named after Jean Cocteau, a French artist and writer. |
| Cream |
Formed by Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in 1966, the band took name Cream because the trio reportedly considered themselves the cream of the crop of British blues players. |
| Curved Air |
The name was borrowed from A Rainbow in Curved Air, the title of a 1969 album by Terry Riley. |
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| Dead Can Dance: |
Band member Brendan Perry reportedly selected the name, which was inspired by "the transformation inanimacy to animacy". This was reflected in an illustration on the album's cover, which depicted a ritual mask from New Guinea. |
| Deep Purple |
They considered the name Concrete God but settled on Deep Purple at the urging of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's grandmother after her favorite song "Deep Purple" a number one hit for Nino Tempo and April Stevens in 1963. |
| Doors: |
The name the Doors grew out of conversations Jim Morrison had with his roommate Dennis Jakob at UCLA. Discussing names for an imaginary rock band, they agreed that a good choice would be the Doors, which came from a poem by William Blake. Aldous Huxley used the line for the title of his book on mescaline experimentation, "The Doors of Perception". |
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| Genesis: |
The band's first producer, Jonathan King, gave them the name. he also suggested they write the concept album "From Genesis to Revelation". The term had more to do with the band's inability to choose a name as the release date of their first single approached. |
| Gentle Giant |
Presumebly they named the band after Pantagruel and Panurge, the gentle giants of French mythology. |
| Gnidrolog |
Stewart Elliott Goldring, Gnidrolog's guitarist explains: "Some people have called Gnidrolog a 'progressive' rock band. We certainly play lot of different types of music including what is now called 'progressive' music. Our music was once described as being 'mixed - up,' so we took our family name Goldring and mixed up the letters of our name. Goldring then became Gnidrolog - with help from the added letter 'o'." |
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| Hatfield and the North: |
They found their name on a road sign leading out of London. |
| Hawkwind |
The group's bassist, Lemmy, claimed that another member had a big nose like the beak of a bird and a gas problem, hence, Hawkwind. |
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| Iron Butterfly: |
Lead singer and keyboard player Doug Ingle explains: "I wanted a name we could live up to. We wanted to be good. Good consists of being heavy, tight; together, not only musically, but as people. It also means being light, dynamic, versatile, and original. I added all those qualities together and it boiled down to heavy and pretty. At the time, insect names seemed to be the big thing, so we became Iron Butterfly". |
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| Joy Division: |
They began in Manchester in late 1976 as the Stiff Kittens, changing their name the following year to Warsaw, after a song on David Bowie's "Low" album. Later that year, they dropped the name to avoid confusion with the London punk band Warsaw Pakt. They adopted their new name from the book "House of Dolls", a novel of sadomasochism set in a Nazi concentration camp in which the "joy division was the term for prostitute's wing. |
| Jethro Tull |
A booker at the Chrysalis booking agency who had studied history suggested Jethro Tull, the name of an 18th century English agriculturist who invented the seed drill. |
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| Kansas: |
Kansan evolved from a band formed by guitarist Kerry Livgren, bassist Dave Hope, and drummer Phil Ehart, all native Kansans and classmates at West Topeka High School, in 1970. In 1972, the band changed its name from White Clover to Kansas at Livgren's suggestion. |
| King Crimson |
The name was suggested by the band's songwriter, Peter Sinfield - "The name King Crimson was mine - I wanted something like Led Zeppelin, something with a bit of power to it. Anything better than Giles, Giles, and Fripp. King Crimson had arrogance to it". The guitarist Robert Fripp is quoted in a booklet accompanying the Essential King Crimson box set, "The name King Crimson is a synonym for Beelzebub, which is an anglicized form of the Arabic phrase B'il Sabab. This means literally the man with an aim and is the recognizable quality of King Crimson." |
| Klaatu |
The band borrowed its name from the alien charecter in the 1951 sci-fi classic, The day the Earth Stood Still. |
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| Marrilion: |
Originally Silmarillion, the band borrowed the name from the title of J.R.R. Tolkien book. |
| Matching Mole |
Formed in December 1971 by ex-Soft Machine's drummer Robert Wyatt. The name was conceived by a brilliant twist, by using a French translation of the name Soft Machine (La Machine Molle). |
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| Nice: |
The band, which included Keith Emerson, formed in London in 1967. They reportedly took their name from the Small Faces song "Here Comes the Nice", an ode to amphetamines. |
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| Pere Ubu: |
The name was taken from a character in Alfred Jarry's 1896 play, Ubu Roi. Singer and lyricist Dave Thomas explains why he chose the name: "Well, the glib remark would be that all the good names were taken already. At the time, Pere Ubu was quite clearly a good name because it met the prime requisites: that it had three syllables, that it didn't mean anything particularly, but it seemed to mean something at the same time , that it looked good and sounded good". |
| Pink Floyd |
Originally the Pink Floyd Sound, the band was named in honor of two Georgia bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. |
| Procol Harum |
Procol Harum, which in Latin means "beyond these things", was also the name of a friend's cat. |
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| Queen: |
The name was lead singer Freddie Mercury's idea and was chosen because it was short, memorable and had the connotations of royalty, drama, and dynamism. |
| Quicksilver Messenger Service |
The name was chosen because of the common astrological signs of the band members- Virgo and Gemini. In astrology, the ruling planet for Vertigo and Gemini is Mercury. The element mercury is also known as quicksilver. |
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| Residents, The |
The mysterious Residents, who materialized in San Francisco in 1974, have never identified themselves by name or appeared onstage or in photographs without some kind of mask. Hardy Fox, one of the band's managers, explains: "The first audition tape that the Residents ever sent to a record company was to Warner Brothers, and they didn't have a name, they didn't use a name, they didn't even believe in names; they still don't actually. So they sent it in, and when it was returned as a rejection, it was just addressed to "The Residents" at the address, so they said, "It must be us, and it has been ever seen." |
| Rush |
During the early 70s, some headshops in Toronto sold a product called "rush". The substance came in a small bottle and when sniffed, produced a head rush. |
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| Soft Machine: |
The band took their name from a novel of the same name by William Burroughs. |
| Spirit |
Originally called Spirits Rebellious after a book by Kahlil Gibran, the band later shortened the name to Spirit. |
| Strawbs |
This name is short for the Strawberry Hill Boys. Strawberry Hill is a district in London where the band rehearsed. |
| Supertramp |
The name was taken from the book, "Autobiography of a Supertramp", written in 1908 by W.H.Davies. The book is a tale of a British tramp who roamed the United States. |
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| This Mortal Coil |
The name comes from a line in Shakespeare's Hamlet: "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause." |
| Traffic |
Steve Winwood formed Traffic in 1967 after leaving the Spencer Davis Group. The name was coined by drummer Jim Capaldi while standing on the street corner one day watching the cars go by. |
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| Utopia |
Todd Rundgren formed Utopia in new York City in 1974. Rundgren explains: "That was an idea I had even before there was the band, really. I had an idea, that I wanted to do something that went along with the kind of wild and crazy music that I was into. I was taking some psychedelic drugs at the time, and i just had all of these different kinds of visions. The effect on me from taking psychedelic drugs was very sort of spiritual. For some people it was just recreational, but for me it was epiphanal. I had this idea that I wanted to make music a different way and that I also wanted to have a different kind of band structure, and on one particular excursion it occurred to me that the name of the band should be Utopia. |
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| Van der Graaf Generator |
This purposefully misspelled name was chosen in 1967 by the band's drummer Chris Judge Smith. The name memorializes R.J. Van der Graaff's invention of a static electricity used in atomic energy research. |
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| Yes |
In the liner notes to a Yes box set, singer Jon Anderson recounts the story: "Yes got pulled out of the bag, I think. We wanted to display a strong conviction in what we were doing. We had to have a strong and straight title for the band. |
