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 If you have a name origin you would like to submit click here. 

311

Submitted by: Bryan
Source: Book of Useless Info

"311 is the police code for indecent exposure in California" 

Note from editor - I believe it is actually Omaha, NE not California

3 Doors Down

Submitted by: Kim
Source: Band interview

the name came from when one day the band was walking down a street and this door had a piece on wood across the door that said "doors down" and the time there was 3 in the band so they called there band 3 Doors down..

AC/DC

Submitted by: John Dale
Source:  Biography on Inside the music, and  www.ac-dc.cc

"Falsely assumed to be Anti-Christ Devil's Children, the actual origin of the name has a much more innocent meaning: The Young's sister, Margeret suggested it after she seen it on the back of a vacuum cleaner." 

note from editor - other variations of this story have the band finding AC/DC on the back of a sewing machine

Adema

Kris From Adema “The name is actually a medical term. Its spelled edema and we just changed the spelling. A friend of the band who worked at a, he was actually working at a morgue for a while, he just mentioned the term one night and we thought it was cool so we used it with the different spelling. Basically it a, it can also be like a German name; we thought the spelling was cool. It comes from a medical term, that’s where it comes from it mean swelling of the skin. 

Aerosmith

A popular myth is that the name came from a respelling of the title of the Sinclair Lewis novel “Arrowsmith”. But in the group’s autobiography “Walk This Way” Joey Kramer tells the story of how when he was still in school he was sitting around with his girlfriend one day listening to Harry Nilsson’s “Aerial Ballet” and he and his girlfriend started thinking of cool band names that had “aero” in them, he thought up “aerosmith” and liked the way it sounded. He loved the name so much he used to write it all over his school books. But the band he was with at the time  didn’t want to use it. So fast forward to a little after he had joined Joe Perry and Steven’s band. They used to sit around and watch old Three Stooges reruns, stoned. One day they had a band meeting after the “Stooges” to try and come up with a name, Kramer remembered the word he used to compulsively write on his schoolbooks. The band didn’t like it at first because they thought it was the title of the Sinclair Lewis novel they were forced to read in high school but Joey said “No, no, A-E-R-O” and it stuck because they liked the connotation of power and the lift their music gave off. 

Anthrax

Submitted by: Rick
Source: BTM: anthrax

scott ian got the name "anthrax" from his biology class in high school. he thought it was a cool name. although they got alot of backlash during the anthrax attacks of late 2001. 

From Editor: Actually original member Danny Lilker is credited with coming up with the name. BILLY MILANO said the following after the BTM sparked a ton of controversy since Scott and Charlie were accused of leaving some of the original members out of the show and rewrote the history of the band. 

“I'm in a band with Charlie [Benante] and Scott [Ian]—both of whom have told me to my face Lilker thought of the name." -  BILLY MILANO

antiMUSIC.com

The name came from the book "Broken Record : The Inside Story of the Grammy Awards" by Henry Schipper. The Grammys were started by industry insiders who wished to counter the rise of Rock n Roll, a form of music they considered "anti music". 

The Beatles 

The old “party line” that John Lennon used to give was “A man came down on a flaming pie and said ‘let there be Beatles with an A’” A more orthodox explanation is it was inspired by Buddy Holly's backing band "the Crickets" and the misspelling was a play on words to describe a “beat” band. 

Beastie Boys

Submitted by: Bryan
Source: Book of Useless Info

"Beastie supposedly stands for Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence" 

Black Sabbath 

Supposedly the band spotted a marquee or poster for the film “Black Sabbath” at a cinema near where they rehearsed. They were amused by the fact that people would pay to be scared by a movie. So when they discovered another band was using the name “Earth” the decided to change their name to “Black Sabbath” because it fit with their music. 

The Calling

Submitted by: b real
Source: Alex Band

2 months before the record came out he said "this is our calling"

Cheap Trick

The band is rumored to have come up with the name from playing with a Ouiji Board. 

The Clash

Submitted by Scott
Source:various websites

"Shortly after recruiting Joe Strummer, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon were trying to think of a band name.  Mick came across the word 'Clash' in a newspaper headline."

Counting Crows

Submitted by: Bryan
Source: Book of Useless Info

"A reference to an old british poem that said life is as meaningless as counting crows" 

Creed

Submitted by: MFo
Source: Creed's website and behind the music

Creed is from the former bassist, Brain Mashall, and he was in a group before CREED and it was named Madox's Creed and they were playing around with the word creed and their names. They finaly settled on just Creed.

Another submission with a different origin:

Submitted by: b real

They got their name from a book by Steven King titled "Pet Cemetary".Creed was the family's last name.

DEVO

Submitted by: Bryan
Source: Book of Useless Info

"An abbreviation of de-evolution, something that the members of the group believe is happening to the human race." 

The Doors

Submitted by: mike
Source: biography

singer jim morrisson and organ player ray manzarek got it from an aldous huxley book called the doors of perception.

Drowning Pool

RNW: Where did your name come from? I hear there is a lurid story behind it. 

Stevie: The name came from my parents were out of town for spring break and I decided to stay behind so I could like party and have my friends over. One of those nights I just brought my girlfriend over, watching TV and I finally got laid! I’d been working on it for months and that movie happened to be on [Clint Eastwood’s The Drowning Pool] and years later I was thinking of a band name and I was like you know; thinking about playing in a band, thinking about getting laid and the two just kind of fell together. 

C.J.: Such a sweet story! 

Stevie: It is. I feel sorry for that poor girl, someday someone is going to find her and give her hell about this. 

RNW: What’s her number we’ll call her right now. 
(Laughs… C.J. starts rattling off a bogus phone number. )

Duran Duran

The group took their name from a character in the cult classic “Barbarella”. 

 If you have a name origin you would like to submit click here.