Names -> Band Name Origins -> M, Page 3
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 M are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4
There are 4420 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| Moloko | Variant spelling of the greek insult "Malaka", also names after the character Moloko | Jay_the_Weird | ||
| Moloko | From the name of the bar in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" | michael morrell | ||
| Moloko | Moloko is actually the Russian word for milk...hence it's usage as a DRINK name in A Clockwork Orange. | Toby | ||
| Moloko | your definition is wrong. moloko means MILK in russian language. | adam Pett | ||
| Moloko | It is the DRINK that the boys are consuming in the milk bar in A Clockwork Orange. | Knowledge | ||
| Moloko | This isn't actually how the band got their name (it's ater the dink in Clockwork Orange)but I thought I might add that anyone who reads greek will know it alsomeans something rude.....hmmm, wonder if they knew THAt definition when they picked it? I doubt it, somehow. | Robb | ||
| Moloko | Named from the Anthony Burgess novel 'A Clockwork Orange' | Bobo | ||
| The Monkees | The band was created as sort of an answer to The Beatles in the 1960's. The name "Monkees" is a slight skewering of the word "monkeys", just as Beatles is a sendup of "beetles" | Brian | ||
| The Monotones | Acorrding to a band member, the name meant "one tone" and "we were so close, like one". | oldtimers | ||
| Monster Magnet | The Monster Magnet was a toy made by Wham-o. | heavymetal | ||
| Montgomery Gentry | There are two guys in the band!! one of the dudes last name is MOntgomery and the other dudes last name is Gentry. | Red'Neck | ||
| The Moody Blues | Around 1962 Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder (2 of the original band members) formed The Krew Cats and spent the next year or so touring in Hamburg before disbanding and forming The Moody Blues 5, shortening it to The M & B 5 when Mitchell and Butlers Breweries agreed to sponsor the band. When this sponsorship did not materialise they changed the name to The Moody Blues in 1964. (Source: Official Moody Blues website www.moodyblues.co.uk) | SteveDTM | ||
| Mookie Blaycock | Original name of Pearl Jam - named after New Jersey Net whose number was 10 - the name of their first album. | Bobo | ||
| The Mooney Suzuki | The band was simply named after the last names of the two vocalists for the German band Can. Malcolm Mooney and Kenji "Damo" Suzuki were the singers of Can in the 1970's. | Cosmo | ||
| Morcheeba | M.O.R. "middle of the road" CHEEBA is a slang name for ganja (They all love to smoke) Read it in music magazine interview with Skye Edwards, the singer | steve | ||
| Mordus | The French word for "Bitten", sometimes associated with the bight of a Vampire. Mordus took this name based on the nocturnal nature of their sleepless bass player, who has been told, time after time, that he must be a Vampire. | Eric | ||
| Mother Love Bone | Andy Wood, the band's lead singer, while trying to come up with a band name wrote down a list of words that he liked and tried pairing them up. He ended up going with "Mother Love Bone" because it was just "three words that sound really good together." | Marissa | ||
| The Mothers Of Invention | Frank Zappa's band was originally called, simply, "The Mothers", but their record company, fearing negative connotations, insisted that they add "Of Invention" at the end. It derives, of course, from the expression "necessity is the mother of invention". | Mike | ||
| Mothers of Invention | In California at the time, accomplished guitarists were refered to as "motherf***ers" - abbreviated to "mothers" . Zappa wanted to call his band "The Mothers" but the record company feared the association with obscenity, so out of necessity Zappa added "of Invention". | Mark T | ||
| The Mothers of Invention | Frank Zappa's band was originally just "The Mothers." Chicken-hearted MGM Records made him add "...of Invention" fearing that just "Mothers" would invoke the dreaded 12-letter obscenity. | zap | ||
| Motley Crue | Guitarist, Mick Mars was standing in a room with some other people, when a man walked in and said, "Well you look like a motley crue!" Mick then decided that Motley Crue would be a good band name, and if he was to have another band he would call it Motley Crue. (I read this in the Motley Crue autobiography, 'The Dirt'.) | Olivia | ||
| Motley Crue | Before the band got together, guitarist Mick Mars was hanging out with some friends. Someone walked into the room and said "well isn't this a motley lookin crew". Mick immediatly write it down and decided that if he ever had a band it would be called Motley Crue. | Natasha | ||
| Motley Crue | The members were sitting around in a bar trying to come up with a name and were talking about naming the band 'Christmas' when an older man walked in seen the 4 long haired rockers and said 'That's a motley looking crew'...from an interview with Vince Neil. | me | ||
| Motley Crue | I saw a show about the rise and fall of the band. They were sitting around trying to come up with a name for the band, when a friend came in and called them a motley crew. One of them was drinking a lowenbrau and thats where the double dots and the crue came from. | RobA | ||
| Motley Crue | From a Vince interview on MTV. It was Vince's mom that saw the band members together and she said, "Well, aren't you a motley looking crew." I was not said by some friend or an old man. | druidicfear | ||
| Motley Crue | The band was sitting around trying to come up with a great band name (they were thinking of calling themselves "Christmas"), when a friend of the band walked in and said," Well, you look like a motley looking crew" so...hence, the name of the band. | wayne b | ||
| motley crue | In "THE DIRT" (The Motley Crue autobiography), Mick Mars came up with the name Motley Crue, meaning dressed in loud or rude clothing. | nikki nine | ||
| Motley Crue | From a Vince interview on MTV. It was Vince's mom that saw the band members together and she said, "Well, aren't you a motley looking crew." I was not said by some friend or an old man. | druidicfear | ||
| Motley Crue | When Nikki Sixx (bassist) originally formed the band that is Motley Crue, he felt the band name should already have a familiarity about it so that they could achieve interest & popularity among a fan base quite easily. In that mindset, he came close to calling the band 'Christmas', as having the word 'Christ' in there would, he thought, propel the band to stardom. Mick Mars (guitarist), however, thought the name a little too bizarre, and consequently presented the band name 'Motley Crew' to the band members. (As others have suggested, this name is believed to have been spawned from a humorous insult Mars had received in the past). After the band played with the spelling a little, replacing "crew" with "crue", the band went on to further the uniqueness of their name by adding the famous umlauts above the "o" of "Motley" and the "u" of "Crue". Vince Neil (vocals) suggests this action was a result of drinking Lowenbrau, a German beer that features such umlauts. Tommy Lee (drums) seems to support this notion. | J!M | ||
| Motorhead | Lemmy wanted to call the band 'Bastard', but band members said they'd never get on tv with that name. Motorhead came from the old hawkwind song 'Motorhead' | fodder | ||
| Motorhead | "It was the last song Lemmy wrote when he was in Hawkwind. The song "Motorhead" is essentially a cover of Hawkwind's version. (According to the Motorhead website.)" The above post by Guillermo is correct. What they don't mention on their website is that Motorhead is a slang term used in Britian, mostly by biker types, to refer to an amphetamine user. Lemmy K. wrote at least one other song about his love of speed (Speedfreak). He also had to have all his teeth pulled at a rather young age, if you get my drift. | Valis | ||
| Motorhead | i read on a drug abuse website,that people who use the drug pcp are called motorheads i heard this is where lemmy the lead singer got the name | Mike Mashburn | ||
| Motorhead | It was the last song Lemmy wrote when he was in Hawkwind. The song "Motorhead" is essentially a cover of Hawkwind's version. (According to the Motorhead website.) | Guillermo | ||
| Motorhead | Lemmy was also a speed user when the band was formed. The British slang for speed freak= Motorhead. "Lemmy" got his nickname during his roadie days. His most famous When he was low on money, he'd ask if you could "lemme a fiver (lend me $5.00). | John | ||
| Motorhead | "Motorhead" is another term for a someone addicted to speed, or meth. | Kyle | ||
| Motorpsycho | The name is taken from the film by Russ Myers. | rafn | ||
| Mott The Hoople | Named After The Character Norman Mott In the Willard Manus novel " Mott The Hoople ". | Andy Boyd | ||
| Mott The Hoople | Named after the novel "Mott The Hoople" by William Manus. | dude | ||
| Motörhead | Lemmy Kilmister wanted to call the band "Bastard". But as a band with that name would never be successful, he changed the name into "Motörhead" which was the title of the last song he had written for Hawkwind. Its simply a slang term for "speed freak". | Ginger | ||
| Mourning Widows | Guitarist/singer Nuno Bettencourt saw a painting in Portugal which left an impression, the name of which was "Mourning Widows". | fondu | ||
| The Move | Because all the members moved in from other groups, the idea being to create a Birmingham super-group. | Tim | ||
| MR Bungle | Mr. Bungle was actually the name of a character in a porno film General Patton had. | fig | ||
| Mr. Big | "Mr. Big" was chosen by Eric Martin, Billy Sheehan and company from a song done by the band "Free" (original band of later Bad Company frontman Paul Rogers) of the same name. The liner notes of the album where Mr. Big covers this song confirms this. | Danger-us | ||
| Mr. Bungle | Mr. Bungle was a character in the PeeWee Herman show. The band didn't realise there was a character called Mr. Bungle in the porn film "Sharon's Sex Party" until a member of Faith No More informed them. | Kelly | ||
| Mr. Bungle | Mr. Bungle is the name of a character in a childrens educational video about manners and hygiene. You can hear and excerpt from this on their self titled album. | Angelduster | ||
| Mr.Bungle | Named after the big freaky bear thing from rainbow | PeTeR | ||
| Mr.MacGregor | When some members of the group No No Bun Bun left, remaining members took on a new drummer and, wanting to keep the 'rascally rabbity' theme, yet empower themselves to a greater degree, they took on the name Mr. MacGregor from Beatrix Potter's 'Peter Rabbit' stories. | dkb | ||
| MSFunk | Many people think the name means "Ms. Funk" but actually the name came from a recording session the band did in Muscle Shoals, Alabama when, during one of the band's tracks, the recording engineer said "C'mon guys... give it some good old Muscle Shoals funk". The name stuck. | Jack Arnold | ||
| Muddy Gumbo | Regarding their moniker, the name Gumbo was on the group's original list. "Gumbo popped up early on but was scrapped. However Earl pointed out, that's our sound - so much of everything. But the name couldn't just be "Gumbo" and they felt it needed something else. One morning Scott woke up humming a Muddy Water's tune and was listening to a lot of Blues at the time and then the name just came to him -- Muddy Gumbo. They did a search and no one else had it, so the band voted to go with it because it rolls off the tongue, is memorable, and in tune with a great band name. | Rebel With A Cause | ||
| Muddy Waters | McKinley Morganfield earned his nickname from his grandfather. He called him Muddy Waters when his grandson was a child because Muddy loved to play in the waters a lot. | Kyle | ||
| Mudhoney | Like Faster Pussycat, named after one of exploitation king Russ Meyer's B-movies. | kookbox | ||
| Mudvayne | The mud vein in a shrimp is the poop chute. Basically solid s***. It's the worst part of the shrimp, a normally good tasting dish. It has to be removed for the shrimp to taste good. Basically the band was calling themselves s***. | Montag | ||
| Mudvayne | Mudvayne got thier name from the waste canal on the dorsal side of a shrimp. | pat | ||
| Mudvayne | As mentioned in previous entries, a mudvayne is a waste canal in shrimp and other aquatic wildlife. I'd say that since the band is from Illinois rather than Louisiana, that they probably thought of catfish rather than shrimp. | AJW | ||
| Mudvayne | The Drummer had been drumming since he was 8. He was always obsessed with hard rock and would try to play hard rock on his set and beat them so hard for so long that his viens grew and began to pop out. One day he was rolling around in mud, or having a mud fight with his friends from the band and his viens got covered in mud. Thus they thought it looked cool an the decided to call there band name that. But to be original they spelled vain wrong. | Wes | ||
| Mudvayne | Lead vocalist, Chad Gray "Kud" is really into sci-fi, like "2001: A Space Oddity" and into aliens and the like. He had a dream where an alien told him the password to the next life was "Mudvayne." I met Kud and he told me this from his own mouth!!! | Neal | ||
| Mudvayne | Actually they got the name from the vein that has to be removed from shrimp and crawfish when you eat them boiled (known as the mudvein). | Justin Williams | ||
| Mudvayne | They chose their name because it's medical slang for a collapsed vein. | Krystal | ||
| MudVayne | Not sure about up north, but a Mud Vain has always been synonymous with a crawfish/shrimp intestine in Louisiana, which, since mud is their main diet staple, is full of mud. Quickly became slang for the human counterpart, as another widely accepted slang for human fecal matter is mud (as in "don't mud your undies, it's not a big deal"). MudVayne = crapper. I'm not sure who gave you that horseshit about someone having "big vains" and being "covered in mud", but trust me, this slang has been around forever. They're just embarassed about their stupid band name. Hope this helps! | Matthew LaGrange | ||
| Mukala | This band is named after there lead singer Dan Mukala | Silas | ||
| Mule | A southern band originally called 'Rain' after The Beatles song in '68. Mid '68 named changed to Mule after having to haule their gear out of a flooded muddy area with a mule team after a gig. When playing blues called themselves 'The Raw Mule Blues Band' 'cause it sounded good. From a former band member now with some big named southern bands. | Seamus | ||
| Mulva | The band's name came from a Seinfeld episode. | Mark Enghout | ||
| Murder By Death | Taken from the 1976 movie of the same name starring Peter Sellers. | Aaron...that's right, Aaron | ||
| Murder Inc. | Name picked for a one-off band (one single, one album and one remix album total their recorded output) consisting of former members of Killing Joke, PiL, Ministry, and various other bands, from the term coined by the press to describe Jewish mobsters who formed a union to off their rivals. | kurt | ||
| Muse | As teenagers they went through lots of band names that were verging on the ridiculous. After hanging around with a local tramp/'musician' who noted a strange surge in the creativity of their hometown's youth ("like a muse passing through the town"), they decided to settle on Muse. (Sourced from various interviews with the band.) | Anamaria | ||
| Muse | Muse were called Rocket Baby Dolls due to a Japaneese porno movie Dom and Matt had seen before they played a gig once. But the reson they came about the name Muse was just before they were about to go on stage, they remembered someone said all these new band were like 'a falling muse', so they decided to call themselves Muse. | John wayne | ||
| Muse | The real reason: Matt Bellamy said in an interview that when thinking up a new name for Rocket Baby Dolls, he was studying the seven muses at university. | Liamy T. | ||
| Muse | matt described the energy the band got when they played as 'descending from the sky like a muse' and that's where they got their name | Newkette | ||
| Muse | The bands name was originally something else but they changed it to muse as it was short and snappy and apparently matt belamy thought it would look good on posters as the lettering would be larger due to the shorter name than was previously used! | sam | ||
| Muse | Coz of some friends of the lead singer Matt Bellamy, they were three chicks who used to sing and Bellamy played the guitar with them. And for the muses, characters from Greek mithology. | Joaquin Leal | ||
| Muse | The word Muse means "Deep thinking" or "Deep thought", I guess they got it from that mean. Maybe coz us English people are the only people that can "Deep think"??? | Elmo McNugget | ||
| Muse | "We were called the Rocket Baby Dolls, a name I eventually got bored of. So i started looking in the dictionary for a suitable name for our music, and I came across MUSE, which meant inspiring, and poetic. We chose this. We then noticed that above Muse was Muscle, and below that was Museum, so we made a song called Muscle Museum." | Matt Bellamy | ||
| Muse | After being The Gothic Plague and Baby Doll Rockets for a good few years the band had wanted a final name that suited them best. It is from my understanding that in their home town in the U.K. there was a battle of the bands competition at a local roller rink. As the band got on stage the director of the contest asked them what their band name was and they hadn't decided on a final one yet. After asking a second time lead vocalist Matt Bellamy said 'Muse'. Later while being interviewed Matt explains that the name just 'came to him' and it stuck. | Dianne | ||
| Mushroomhead | One of the band's close friends had a bowl cut, and they called him "mushroomhead." They thought it would be a good name for a band. | james | ||
| Mute Drivers | formed by 2 blokes who drove vans for Mute Records in the 1980s, hence.... | Agent Doug | ||
| MVP | It stands for "Most Valuable Playas" | Tarquin | ||
| MXPX | Well, it has already been explained that MXPX used to be M.P. for magnified plaid- but where did magnified plaid come from? Well, one of the band members had this plaid shirt. The plaid was uncommonly large and appeared to be magnified plaid. I guess they liked the name. Oh yeah, the reason why they used x's instead of periods is simply that the x was and is the symbol for straightedge. | Jewel | ||
| MXPX | They couldn't decide a name and one of their friends wore a black T-shirt all the time and there was some other girl that was their friend and she called it the magnified plaid. The named their band that for a little while and then they were making a logo for it, and they had the m and the p and put two x's in the middle and called their band mxpx now. | Heather :) | ||
| MXPX | They were originally called Magnified Plaid. Yuri (the drummer) abbreviated the name for posters and in Yuri language, he uses x's instead of periods, hence MxPx. | Jon Vander Plas | ||
| MxPx | Originally they called themselves Magnified Plaid, and often used the abbreviation of M.P. At some point, people mistook Yuri's (the drummer) depiction of "periods" as x's. The name obviously stuck. | Sam Shaffer | ||
| MxPx | MXPX used to be M.P. for magnified plaid (one of the band members had this plaid shirt. The plaid was bigger then usual and supposedly appeared to be 'magnified plaid'.) I guess they liked the name. One of the band members was designing some kinda merch(shirt or poster) and he used x's for periods(straight edge symbol), When he presented it to his fellow ban mates one read "MxPx?" and it just stook | Britt | ||
| MxPx | They used to be called M.P. which meant Magnified Plaid. But when Yuri was putting up a poster one day, he was trying to write periods, but they came out as Xs.....hence: MxPx. The name stuck. Little tidbit: they're song PxPx is the same thing: the P's are for: Pokinacha Punks...and the Xs are for periods. It's all makes sense!!! | Jeremy punk rawk | ||
| MxPx | they used m.p. for magnified plaid because their first guitar player had a green jacket with a large plaid design on it that appeared to be magnified plaid...and at a show they were playing, the guy who was making the flyers decided to snazzy the m.p. up a bit and use X's for their periods. | fart sniffer | ||
| MXPX | MXPX's first name was Magnified Plaid (Or M.P. for short) so when Yuri (The drummer) was making posters for their upcoming show and he put the periods as X's, so they decided to take that name instead Magnified Plaid. | Todd | ||
| MxPx | The other 2 entries are so close.. unfortunately im old enough to remember their original website. their original explanation i beleive is was Yuri who gave it... Magnified Plaid.. is true.. the x's are because of the way the poster they made was written.. has nothing to do with straight edge... straightedge really didnt have much of anexistence back then. so was M.P (or MxPx) the magnified plad was from an original demo tape they did... yes there was a plaid shirt involved, but the cover of the tape had a magnified version of Plaid on it... promise its true.. was on their official website.. | jcpokinatcha | ||
| My Bloody Valentine | The same name as a gory slasher horror film in the 80's. | newave | ||
| My Chemical Romance | Named after the afrodisiac of South America. It was a drug. | Joe | ||
| My Chemical Romance | The bassist, Mikey Way, used to work at Barnes and Noble. He got the name from a book by Irvine Welsh called Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance. | Gee | ||
| My Chemical Romance | Mikey Way of the band my chemical romance had a job at a bookstore once, and he saw an Irvine Welsh (spelling??) book, and in the summary of the book it had something about chemical romance's...? | Amber | ||
| My Chemical Romance | Mikey Way, the bassist of My Chemical Romance, used to work at Barnes And Nobles. He found a stack of books call "Ecstacy: Three Tales of a Chemical Romance". He told Gerard that if they ever formed a band, that they should name is My Chemical Romance. He felt it suited their lives. | dez | ||
| My Chemical Romance | The members said "were too big of losers to have date so we'll create them" | Jimbo | ||
| My Chemical Romance | Bassist Mikey Way was working in a Barnes And Noble's. One day, a stack of Irvine Walsh's books, "Four Tales Of A Chemical Romance" were dropped off. Mikey told Gerard that if they were ever in a band, they should name it 'My Chemical Romance', because the title suited their daily lives. | Kelsey Valentino | ||
| My Chemical Romance | Gerard and Mikey way were working at a book store and the manager brought British books in the back room and Mikey looked on the inside cover of a book the said 4 tales of Chemical Romance and he said it would be cool if you added My in front of Chemical Romance. | amanda day | ||
| My Chemical Romance | They got it off a book by Irvine Welsh called "Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romances". | Heather | ||
| My Chemical Romance | Bassit,Michael Way, brother of lead vocals,Gerard Way, worked in a Barnes And Noble's bookstore and mikey was reading the blurb to Irvine Welsh's "Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romances". Then mike's decided to throw a 'My' on the front to give it a little twist and make it 'My Chemical Romance' | Lauren | ||
| My Chemical Romance | They stole it from the name of a book. | Jessica | ||
| My Chemical Romance | Mikey Way, the bassist, used to work at a Barnes & Noble. It was while racking Irvine Welsh's "Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance" that Mikey came up with the name for the band. | ellywashere | ||
| My Morning Jacket | In My Morning Jacket's case, a deep well of rich, mesmeric stories, images and memories. To begin with, there's the name. Years ago, while Jim was visiting his old college, his favourite student-hangout bar suddenly burnt down. Among the charred remains, as he wandered around, Jim found a jacket, stitched with the initials 'MMJ'. To Jim, this stood for 'My Morning Jacket'. | Vicki Robertson | ||
| Månegarm | The band's name comes from Mánagarmr, a wolf in Norse mythology. | weirdkid106 | ||
| Mötley Crüe | Long before the Crüe was formed, guitarist Mick Mars had seen a band called Motley Crew and thought it was a cool name. When the Mötley's were choosing their name, Mick suggested Motley Crew. They were also drinking Löwenbräu at the time. They thought the dots over the "o" and "a" were cool (called an umlaut). They changed "Crew" to "Crüe". | Crue_Head |
Entries starting with M are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4
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