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Names -> Band Name Origins -> S, Page 2
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 S are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
There are 4771 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| Shai Hulud | Shai Hulud got their name from the giant evil sandworms in the science fiction novel Dune. | Mark | ||
| Shakespear's Sister | After leaving Bananarama, Siobhan Fahey was looking for a way to reinvent herself. She called the band Shakespear's Sister after the both Virginia Woolf essay, and the song by The Smiths--minus the "e". | Andi | ||
| Shakespeare's Sister | Named after a song by The Smiths. | Hill | ||
| Sham 69 | The group's name actually comes from a piece of graffiti honouring the exploits of the local football team Walton & Hersham in 1969. Part of the wall it was written on had been lost over time, leaving just the legend Sham 69 | Steve Con | ||
| Sham 69 | The band is from lewiSHAM in London. The post/zip code for the area was something like se69. | benny | ||
| Shania Twain | Shania Twain was baptised Eillen Regina Edwards. She was adopted by her stephfather Jerry Twain, an Ojibwa native. Starting her career she changed her first name to Shania ( in Ojibwa "I“m on my way"), the name of a co-worker | Anne Jo | ||
| Shania Twain | Actual name Irene Twain. Twain's manager did not think her name would sell records. He asked her to change Twain but in respect to her father kept Twain and changed Irene. | Irene | ||
| Shattered | The lead guitarist and the drummer and the bassist were trying to come up with a name for the band when the guirtarist got mad because the others was refusing everything he was saying, when he slammed his guitar to the ground thus shattering the guitar. | Chris Holloway | ||
| The She's | Self-described young, all-girl band | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| ShEAVY | They were originally called Green Machine, after the Kyuss song by the same name. After discovering that there was another band by the same name, they decided to change theirs, but they wanted to stick with the car theme. So they chose Chevy and spelled it phonetically: s then HEAVY. | MantlePicture | ||
| Shed 7 | Called thusly because there were originally 11 of them and they were told that to get on, they'd need to.........Shed 7 | Plug_Boy | ||
| Shed 7 | I was listening to XFM: "The Breakfast Show". They had the lead singer on, who said there was a row of six sheds and they thought it would be cool to be the seventh. | chadwick | ||
| Shed 7 | One or all of the band were on a train going from somewhere to somewhere else in England when they past a row of "Alotments" or "Sheds" or "Garages" (probably alotments with a shed at the bottom)and the number "7" or "seven" on the roof of the seventh one along caught the eye of who ever was the founding band member. So Shed 7 became the name. I remember them mentioning it on Radio 1 (UK). | jedicarwasher | ||
| Shed Seven | They are from York in Yorkshire, England (which is on the rail network) and used to play games in railway shed number 7. | Matt C | ||
| Shed Seven | The band originally had 7 members, who met in a shed near York. | Colm O Hara | ||
| SHeDAISY | SHeDAISY means "little sister" in a Native American language; and this band consists of 3 sisters, Kassidy, Kelsi, and Kristyn Osborne from Magna, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. They've been singing together since they were very young and later found fame in Nashville with major record labels. | Eric | ||
| Sherbet | Australia's biggest band in the '70s; their one Stateside hit: "Howzat?" "Sherbet" doesn't mean a dessert Down Under- it's beer, mate! (Leader Daryl Braithwaite starred on his own in the '90s.) | jonaco | ||
| Shihad | I interviewed the band at a radio station called LFM I work at and they said that the name came from the sentence 'she had my balls in her mouth' honest, no joke | richard whale | ||
| Shihad | After watching the David Lynch movie "Dune", the band took their name from the line "We shall wage this Jihad across the Universe!". Apparently they misheard the line and took the name Shihad. They briefly changed their name to Pacifier (the title of a track on their album "The General Electric" while trying to break into the US market post 9/11as their management believed a name derived from Jihad would go down like a suicide bomber in the US. | Macsen Wledig | ||
| The Shinigami | A shinigami is a death god in Japanese mythology. Mortiroth chose the name as she was studying mythology at school at the time. | ShadowKeyzer | ||
| Shirelles | The name was derived from the first name of their lead singer, Shirley Alston. | Barry Disbrow | ||
| Shoes | Named by the band's bassist, John Murphy. His brother Jeff told me that it was picked simply because it was something common. Many believe that the band picked this name because the Beatles, when asked why they picked their name, said that they could have called themselves the Shoes. Well, the Beatles indeed said that, but the guys in Shoes (never has been a 'the" in front of their moniker) weren't familiar with this quip and were later startled, and pleasantly surprised, by it. | Rick Gregory | ||
| Shonen Knife | I have a fanzine where Shonen Knife were interviewed. The girls were in school and decided to form a band. The thing of it is, none of them could play an instrument. Anyway, they got instruments and then went about the task of naming themselves. One if the girls turned around in class and saw a boy with a pocket knife and asked him what kind of knife it was. He replied, "it is a 'Shonen' knife." She then thought it (shonen knife) would be a good name for the band. The other girls loved it as well, and the rest is history. | Brian | ||
| Shonen Knife | Shonen can mean either boy or young at heart, it's also a style of manga. Knife (naifu/hocho) is self explanatory. | Suichi-kun | ||
| Shonen Knife | Since they did heavy metal they called half of the name Knife.Because they were girls, they picked shonen when they put the both together, the name was shonen knife | Daniel | ||
| Shonen Knife | The band name is Shonen Knife, not Shonen-ai Knife; so there for shonen-ai has nothing to do with the band. Shonen (shounen) is written with the characters for 'young' and 'age'. | Warumono | ||
| Shonen Knife | The brand name of a small Japanese pocket knife (translation: boy knife). | yoko | ||
| Shonen Knife | "Shounen" is composed of the Japanese characters for "young" and "boy" and, in anime, means a teenage boy. "Ai" generally means "love." "Shounen ai" or "shounenai" is the name for a genre of stories about young gay relationships. I have to wonder if the band knew this. | Kielle | ||
| Showbread | Showbread (Hebrew: ××× ×¤× ×× lechem (hap)pÄnÄ«mā, literally: "Bread of the Presence"), in the King James Version: shewbread, in a biblical or Jewish context, refers to the cakes or loaves of bread which were always present on a specially dedicated table, in the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to God. An alternative, and more appropriate, translation would be presence bread, since the Bible requires that the bread is constantly in the presence of Yahweh (Exodus 25:30). | Watching and Waiting | ||
| Sia | First name of Sia Kate Isobelle Furler | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Sigue Sigue Sputnik | The band took its name after a Moscow street gang. | Muzza | ||
| Sigur Ros | Taken from the interview at the beginning of the live 'Ny Batteri' video, one band member had a sister who was born at the same time as the band was forming. Her name? Sigourney Rose. So they decided to name the band after her. | DiscStu | ||
| Sigur Ros | Named after the singer's little sister Sigurros (meaning Victory Rose in Icelandic) who was born at the time the band was formed. | tvigi | ||
| Sigur Ros | It means "Victory Rose" in Icelandic. It's the lead singer's little sister's name. She was supposedly born the day the band was formed. | Pensive Paul | ||
| Sigur Ros | the name of the band, sigur ró³¬ is actually the name of j󮳩's little sister, except it's spelled sigurró³® she was born at the same time as the band formed. sigur ró³ “ranslates to 'victory rose'. | TrollE | ||
| Silicone Baby | From Russian porn star Tassa Deez and her breast implants. Tassa is short for Natasha, Deez for DD cup size. She sings a song in one her adult films called "Bounce"!!! (Editor's note: next time you make a submission, first make sure it's not already in there. I do not accept duplicate entries, so don't waste my time or yours.) | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Silver Leaf | While trying to come up with a name, the band members were laying on a picknic table under a silver leaf maple. Other names were: Quick Silver, Money for Music, Silver Notes | Kalvin Weaver | ||
| Silverchair | Silverchair is a bastardisation of two memorable 45s (Nirvana's caustic "Sliver" and You Am I's calamitous "berlin Chair"). They orriginally wanted to be called "Sliverchair", but their name got misspelled and they became known as "Silverchair". | Pug | ||
| Silverchair | You are all wrong, Alex is almost right but the band member who misspell the songs was the bass player, Chris Joannou, not Ben. | ROCKSANA | ||
| Silverchair | According to Danial Johns they wanted to be named after the Smashing Pumpkins song Sliver F***, but were told they couldn't so the changed it to Silverchair | lamby | ||
| Silverchair | I read somewhere that it's a reference to the title of one of the Chronicles of Narnia books. | sarabella | ||
| Silverchair | first offthe band was called innocent criminals. one day they decided to play a prank on the local radio station by requesting the song sliverchair. which was a combo of you am i's berlin chair and nirvana's sliver. chris wrote it down but being the dumbass he is spelled it wrong and it came out silverchair. (also they never use an upper case "S" "cause it would look stupid.) | anonymous | ||
| Silverchair | The Chronicles of Narnia - "The Silver Chair" | Savannah | ||
| Silverchair | The explanations already given are close, but none are quite right. I'm Ben Gillies, the drummer in Silverchair, and it goes like this.... We were writing down the names of some songs we liked to practise, and two of them were 'Sliver' by Nirvana and 'Berlin Chair' by You Am I. Chris accidentally spelt 'Sliver' as 'Silver', and the way they got written down, 'Silver' appeared right above the 'Chair' of 'Berlin Chair'. We thought the way the two words looked together was cool and we went with it. Simple really! | Ben | ||
| Silverchair | They originally named the band Sliverchair, but a radio DJ messed up and called them Silverchair instead. | Bridget | ||
| Silverchair | They actually were going to be called something else but Chris (one of the members) accidentially wrote "silverchair" on the contract & it stuck | Mel | ||
| Silverchair | I read somewhere that they took Nirvana's song Sliver, mixed up the two letters, and took Alice in Chains' song Angry Chair, and combined the two. Not the Berlin song most people are referencing to. | Tina | ||
| Silverchair | Originally called 'Innocent Criminals' which Ben Harper's backing band is called, when they released their first EP they changed their name to 'Silverchair' which actually (whether continuing with the 'criminal' theme) represents the stainless steel toilet in Australian jail cells. | saintan | ||
| Silverchair | The boys were going to ring up Triple J and request 2 songs. Nirvana's 'sliver' and You am I's "Berlin Chair'. Ben wrote the two songs on his hand, shortening 'Berlin Chair' to simply 'chair'. He misspelt Sliver, and had written 'silverchair'. At the time they were the Innocent Criminals, so thinking it sounded cool, they changed their name to silverchair. | Alex | ||
| Silverchair | They originally wanted to be called Sliverchair, but misspelled the name when sending in a form to their first producer. | Whitedawg | ||
| Silverchair | I'd heard them say on TV or radio that it was a cross between You Am I's song title "Berlin Chair" and Nirvana's song title "Sliver", which went from "Sliverchair" to "Silverchair". | Tessa Davis | ||
| Silverchair | inspired by Nirvana's song "silver" and You Am I's song "berlin chair", two of their influences as a young australian band. | sarah | ||
| Silverchair | So sorry, but Saintan is wrong. Silverchair got its name when two members called a radio show to request two songs. One was a song called Berlin Chair by the band You Am I, the other was Sliver by Nirvana. When the singer jotted down both names to remember, he printed the words Silver (misspelling the title) and Chair. The rest, as they say, is history. | Tim | ||
| Silverchair | I think that they recently admitted that they picked it off a list, as their name was Innocent Crimminal, and there was already a band with that name. | cass | ||
| Silverchair | They got the name from the C.S. Lewis book entitled "The Silver Chair". They were such fans of the classic Narnia series that they took that as their name. Although there was a rumour about them being called Dawn Treader at one time. | Rhett Deadley | ||
| Silverchair | They were originally called Innocent Criminals, one day when they were rehearsing they phoned a radio station to request two songs (Nirvana's "Sliver" and You Am I's "Berlin Chair") they wrote ?Sliver? and ?Chair on a bit of paper and thought it sounded cool, so it stuck, the name then got changed to Silverchair by error. | Sophie_The_Fat_Pig_That_Does_Not_Live_In_Bethlehem | ||
| Silverchair | This is actually a misspelling of A Nirvana Song, and another song called, "Something Chair". When this misspelling happened, they thought that the name had sounded cool, so they kept it. | Am | ||
| Silverstein | They were trying to think of a band name when they saw a book on the coffee table called "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein. We've all read it. the rest is history. | Bobby Ferguson | ||
| Silverstein | After the famous children's book author, Shel Silverstein. | sweetPONCHOman | ||
| Silverstein | Someone said it was from Shel Silverstein, the Children's Author, but it was actually the poet. | Deryk | ||
| Simon & Garfunkel | The last names of the two members - Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel | David Pratter | ||
| Simple Minds | Jim Kerr changed the name of the group from Johnny And The Self Abusers to Simple Minds. simply because of tensions between himself & certain members of the afore mentioned Johnny And The Self Abusers | Bigg Yinn | ||
| Simple Minds | Taken from a Bowie lyric | David Murphy | ||
| Simple Minds | It's a quote from Bowie's "Jean Genie" - "...so simple minded, he can't drive his module". Funny enough, I've always misheard that last word as Marcos - a type of car - what does module mean, in this context? Anyway, Simple Minds is an improvement on Johnny and the Self Abusers, their former name. | Graham C | ||
| Simple Plan | It's been said on several occasions in interviews that it was purely lack of imagination. It is also said that the band was their 'Simple Plan' to get laid. | Optimus Lime | ||
| Simple Plan | Pierre has said many times in interviews that they "completely ripped off the bands name from an old Billy Bob Thornton movie called 'A Simple Plan' ". Now, whether they thought it was good coz it related to them doing a 'simple plan' is probably right but it ORIGINALLY came from that movie. Get it right! | Veronica | ||
| Simple Plan | They started the band after Pierre and Chuck left the band 'Reset'. They were looking for a long time for people to complete their new band and they finally figured out that they could ask some guyz they knew. Alas. Seb, Jeff and David were found and they figured it was so simple! they would make a band with the guys they had known for a long time! Such a SIMPLE PLAN. | Dani | ||
| Simple Plan | Members of SP have given many answers one of which being: the band was their simple plan to avoid obtaining a "real" job. | Optimus Lime | ||
| Simple Plan | They got this name beacuase they had to do a show and you can't really do a show without a name. So, they figured that what they're doing is sort of a simple plan so why not name their banmd after that. At least, that's what Pierre said in some interview. | Nicole | ||
| Simple Plan | There's a movie called A Simple Plan- and they took the 'A' off because they're Canadian- and Pierre Bouvier(lead singer) said they didn't need another eh | PierrezGirl | ||
| Simple Plan | They were recording their last demo and were thinking of stupid names and they were thinking of the movie "A Simple Plan". And their plan was to go on tour and travel the world so they thought that was a "Simple Plan" of their own. | Dave | ||
| Simple Plan | They were about to go on a show and they hadn't picked out a name yet. The guy at the show said before they went on they had to have a name. One of the members had just recently saw the movie "A Simple Plan". He thought randomly Simple Plan. And through that show they got somewhat famous, and decided to keep the name. The members talked about this in an Interview on FUSE. | spotters | ||
| Simple Plan | while trying 2 get through school and become a band and the same time one day they got paired up 2 do a science progect and one of them said 2 make somthing that would shock u like electricity and one of them thought it was 2 hard and the other one said no it's a simple plan ur just stupid and right there the name just shocked them ( like electricity.) lol | heck yessss!!! | ||
| Simply Red | Simply, it's the hair color of lead singer Mick Hucknall. | newsound | ||
| Simply Red | Saw a brief interview of the band before a concert many years ago, in which the interviewer asked Hucknall where they got their name. Hucknall replied "simply due to the fact that we are socialists" (red being the associated colour of solialism). Later claims that it is down to his hair colour comes from the fact that he is now extremely wealthy, which goes against the principles of Socialism. Loser. | BigDog | ||
| Simply Red | The bit about adding "Simply" may be true, but the band started off as "Red" because Mick Hucknall is a Mancunian, and supports Manchester United, a football ("soccer") team, who wear, you've guessed it, red shirts. | Richard Braithwaite | ||
| Simply Red | Mick Hucknell is a big Mnchester United support. (I saw him leave an interview early because he had to go to a Manchester United football match.) Manchester United lay in red and their supporters call themsleves 'Reds', Mick Hucknell, therefore, is a Red. This, along with his hair colour gives the bands name. ( | Paulmarkj | ||
| Simply Red | First the band had the name "Red". When they've been asked for the name, they sad: Red, simply red. They did this several times, and then they decided to change the name into Simply Red. | reizo | ||
| Simply Red | I remember an interview in to '80s to the lead singer Mick Hucknall in which he said that when they were thinking about a name for the band he looked himself in a mirror and said "simply red" because of the color of his hair. | ElfQrin | ||
| Simply Red | All the members of the band are devoted fans of Manchester United, a footballteam that has always played in red jerseys. | Frank | ||
| SIN 3-D | Its and undergroud Horrorcore Rap Group. But any way SIN 3-D was just a fluke when writing band names down, and discover that upside down with the D lower case is SIN3d, check it out upside down, pretty cool. | JC5150 | ||
| Siouxsie & the Banshees | Didn't see this listed yet. Just know the lead singer, Siouxsie Sioux is really Susie Ballion. | Tammy | ||
| Sisqo | Sisqo's black, but his hair is sort of fine textured, so back in Baltimore, the kids would call him "Sisqo" - sort of mocking a name that some of the Puerto Rican kids had in the neighborhood. | Courtney | ||
| Sistar | More accurately SiStar, a combo of Sisters and Starship Entertainment. Also claimed as Sister Stars combo. | Robert D. Arndt Jr. | ||
| Sister Hazel | Sister Hazel took their name from a nun in their hometown that they admired. | Taylor | ||
| Sister Hazel | The guys from Sister Hazel wanted to have a name that meant something, and they knew of an African-American lady that ran "Sister Hazel's Rescue Mission" in Gainesville, Florida, where the band got started, so they chose to use her name to represent unconditional concern for people everywhere. | Megan | ||
| Sister Hazel | Printed on back of their self-titled debut album: Sister Hazel was an African-American woman who ran "Sister Hazel's Rescue Mission" in Gainsville, Florida, during the 1970's and early '80's. This facility gave those who were down on their luck a safe place to stay warm, eat, and regroup - regardless of age, race, or beliefs. It is in this spirit of unconditional concern for all beings that we have chosen to use her name. | Matt Burns | ||
| The Sisters of Mercy | "Leonard Cohen wrote a song in which - like us - "The Sisters Of Mercy, they are not departed or gone". He should know. Is that why we picked the name? Almost. We did feel that the song would help the dimmest of the dim to interpret the name. There is an ancient order of nuns called The Sisters Of Mercy. Significantly, the name is a popular reference to prostitutes. (Leonard Cohen's song can be heard in the background of a scene from the film 'McCabe And Mrs Miller', in which Julie Christie leads her bedraggled troupe of whores up the muddy hill which is the main street of a shanty town in the wild west.)" - Originally writen by Andrew Eldritch | Mairi | ||
| Sisters of Mercy | I know there's the Leonard Cohen song, but Sisters of Mercy are actually named after THE SISTERS OF MERCY, a group/convent of nuns in Leeds, where they come from. I also had a nice old lady start talking to me in a pub in Dublin, because she thought my Sisters of Mercy T-Shirt was to do with the nuns. Very surreal. | James | ||
| Sisters of Mercy | No, actually, the other guy in correct. I have an interview with Andy (a few actually) where he explicitly gives the Leonard Cohen song as the original inspiration for the band name. Leonard Cohen in turn took his song title from a convent of nuns (They are not exclusive to Leeds). Andy liked Cohen's use of a convent of nuns, Sisters of Mercy, used instead as groupies or prostitutes... ladies of the night, or Sisters of Mercy... | Chris | ||
| Sisters Of Mercy | Named after a song by Leonard Cohen | Deadmeat | ||
| Six Toed Martha | The drummer's father had told them about a rumor he had heard about Martha Stewart having 6 toes | Punk Diva | ||
| Six wire | most of the band members played guitar, so they wanted to recognize that somehow. They couldn't call their bad "guitar," so they used "Sixwire" which was a pet name they used for a guitar. | Fish | ||
| Sixpence None The Richer | the name, contrary to popular belief, was actually from thier favorite bible verse | Allison | ||
| Sixpence None the Richer | The name of the band came from C.S. Lewis's book "Mere Christianity." There is a part of the book where a child asks for six pence from his father to buy him a gift. The father gives his son the money and thinks that he spent six pence for a gift, so he is really getting the money back in the form of the gift. The band saw it fitting with the message that God gave His Son to buy back His creation. The origin was mentioned in Charisma magazine and many other sources. | burgerjohnson | ||
| Sixpence None The Richer | It is from a scene in the Wiinie the Pooh books by A. A. Milne. Christopher Robin wants to buy his father a present, but needs money from his father to do so. Therefore, the father declares he is sixpence none the richer. | Kirsty Seymour | ||
| Sixpence None the Richer | Reported by Leigh Nash : "It's from Mere Christianity ( by C.S. Lewis) and there's a story where a child asks hisfather for a sixpence to buy his father a gift. The father gives the son the money and is happy with the gift that he gets. But he realizes that hes not any richer, because he gave the child the money in the first place. So C.S. Lewis is comparing that to his belief that God gave us the gift that we have. And thats to serve in the way that we should. We should be humble about it and know where the gifts came from." | Nicole | ||
| Sixpence None the Richer | It actually comes, from the C. S. Lewis book, "Mere Christianity" - that's according to Leigh Nash evrytime they're asked the question. | kalrysta | ||
| Sixstringcanvas | I met the lead singer and he told me that the name came from his guitar and how he viewed it as a canvas for music. Guitars have six strings and when you combine the words you get sixstringcanvas. | Cassie | ||
| Sixx A.M. | "Sixx" came from Nikki Sixx, and A.M. was taken because of "6:00 A.M." | JeReMy |
Entries starting with S are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
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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