Names -> Band Name Origins -> S, Page 4
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 S are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
There are 4420 Band Name Origin entries on the site.
Name | Origin | Submitted by: | ||
| Spandau Ballet | Spandau is the name of the town where Nazi prisoners were incarcerated. Upon being sentenced to death, most prisoners were hung, and from all accounts, a hanging victim does a little dance as life is expiring. Hence, Spandau Ballet is a morbidly humorous reference to this little "dance." | OBartleby | ||
| Spandau Ballet | Spandau isn't exactly a german town, it's a part of Berlin | alva | ||
| Spandau Ballet | Spandau was the prison in Germany where Rudolf Hess was imprisoned. The band members were idling wondering what the few remaining prisoners in the early '80s did to keep themselves occupied. "Ballet" was one suggestion. | Nightboy | ||
| Spandau Ballet | German soldiers during WW1 used a German machine gun gun called a Spandau and called the reactions of anyone caught in its cross fire the Spandau Ballet. | Pete Field | ||
| Spandau Ballet | Martin Kemp says in his autobiography that the name was chosen after Bob Elms had seen the name scrawled on the wall of a toilet in Berlin. | Timoth | ||
| Spandau Ballet | The band was hanging out in the bathroom one day, and they saw some graffiti on the wall that said spandau ballet, so they named themselves after bathroom graffiti. very cool, isn't? | kate | ||
| Spandau Ballet | Spandau is a town in Germany where they made machine guns - hence a "Spandau" is the name the guns are known by. If you shoot somebody with one of these, they will jump and dance about, doing the "Spandau Ballet" | Stevo | ||
| Spandau Ballet | Thier manager found it on the bathroom wall at an early gig and suggested it to the guys. | Kiwi | ||
| Spanky and Our Gang | S&OG (1966-69) was made up of members Elaine 'Spanky' McFarlane, (ie: Spanky) Oz Bach, Malcolm Hale, Nigel Pickering, John Seiter, Kenny Hodges, and Lefty Baker (the gang). It was not coincidental that they named themselves S.A.O.G. - but it had nothing to do with the little rascals, otherwise. | Mitch DiSalle & Iona Lincoln | ||
| Spanky and Our Gang | Based on "The Little Rascals" and George "Spanky" McFarland. "Our Gang" was the name that was used for the Rascals' short films before they changed it. | oldperson | ||
| Spartan-117 | Named after the main character in the microsoft xbox game, Halo. | Rave | ||
| Specii | Just an idea the band leaders friend had for the band's name. Nothing more. | LazerZero | ||
| SpeculuM | Inspired by the David Cronenberg film, DEAD RINGERS. "I'm going to insert the speculum now" | JohnnyTremendous. | ||
| Spice Girls | During the making up of a name as out of Take five, High Five, Plus Five, and Touch. In the end Geri thought of Spice because they were all so different just like spices. That is how the Spice Girls were named. -- Got that info from Geri Halliwell's book "If Only" Blueytwo The Spice girl one that is supposedly from Geri's book is bogus, she says the spice names were given to them by a mag and verifys the story that they were named after a song called Sugar and Spice with girls being added to the name Spice becasue there was a band called Spice already GInger The girls wrote a song called Sugar and Spice (it was never released) and then one of them got the idea to call themselves the Spice Girls. | buttmunch | ||
| Spice Girls | they originally named their band "Spice" because it sounded hot, but it was already the name of a british rapper and they were nearly sued for using a copyrighted name .... so they changed it to "The Spice Girls" | juli | ||
| Spice Girls | The Spice girl one that is supposedly from Geri's book is bogus, she says the spice names were given to them by a mag and verifys the story that they were named after a song called Sugar and Spice with girls being added to the name Spice becasue there was a band called Spice already | GInger | ||
| The Spice Girls | The girls wrote a song called Sugar and Spice (it was never released) and then one of them got the idea to call themselves the Spice Girls. | Vicious | ||
| Spice Girls | During the making up of a name as out of Take five, High Five, Plus Five, and Touch. In the end Geri thought of Spice because they were all so different just like spices. That is how the Spice Girls were named. -- Got that info from Geri Halliwell's book "If Only" | Blueytwo | ||
| Spice Girls | they wanted to call themselves something hot, exotic and unpedictable and geri thought of spice. however...after trying out spice they needed a word to appear younger and more inocent (maketing for younger audience) girls was suggested and the rest is history!! | n*kokky | ||
| The Spiders | The group wanted to name our band "Buggers" but, I suggested "The Spiders" and they all agreed. | Brian Cassidy | ||
| Spinal Tap | Not many people realize but the name 'Spinal Tap' was chosen because the members swore to each other, that if any evil, or any dark force was to later try and steal what they had created, they would hunt the darkness (evil) down and perform an unnesessary spinal tap operation on them, with very very untrained hands. | Jumbofallice | ||
| Spineshank | The band felt people around them were stabbing them in the back, Spine = back shank = stab | Andrew | ||
| Split Enz | The band was called Split Ends until just before their first trip to Australia. They changed the "nds" to "nz" to relect their origins in New Zealand. | Brian Kelly | ||
| Split Enz | Tim Finn wrote "split ends" down in a book. One day as he and Phil Judd were trying to find a name for the band, Phil flipped through the book and saw "Split Ends" That stuck, and the band also had long hair at that time with Split Ends. It was changed to Split Enz to show their love for their home country of New Zealand, it was also because Tim believes that "the Z sticks in your mind." | dizrythmia | ||
| Spock's Beard | At a very strange Californian party Al mentioned to Neal that it felt like they were in a parallel universe where Mr Spock had a beard, followed by "Hey, wouldn't that be a great name for a band?". Years later when they actually formed a band, it was in the list of names and everyone hated it least. It was better than "One" which was what they did one or two gigs under. | Mike | ||
| Spock's Beard | During rehearsal they were playing this strange music, like from another dimension. It was like in one of the Star Trek episodes, where Spock had a beard | fry | ||
| Spock's Beard | The music is like something from an alternate universe, it's like Spock has a beard! That was said by the former lead singer, he was referring to an old StarTrek episode. | Rocky | ||
| Spyro Gyra | From a biology book. It's the name for slimy green pond weed. | Pip | ||
| Squeeze | "Squeeze" was the name of the Velvet Underground's final album, made after all four original members (Reed, Cale, Tucker, Morrison) had left and Doug Yule was the leader. VU has disowned the album (I mean, come on, NO original members? That is *not* the VU). Apparently, a band in the U.S. had the name Squeeze, and their first album (the one with "Take Me I'm Yours") was titled "U.K. Squeeze." | plasket | ||
| Squirrel Nut Zippers | Squirrel Nut Zippers are a peanut candy chew that was popular in the 50's & 60's and is now only available from specialty catalogs that sell nostalgic sweet shop items. | MKBookWorks | ||
| SR-71 | SR-71 is (was) the name of an airplane of some sort. | bAZ | ||
| SR71 | Besides being a fast plane, the SR71 "Blackbird" was also a spyplane, just like the now famous band and infamous spyplane, U2. Sadly though, SR71 lacks any double intendre such as makes a band name sound more clever. (i.e. U2) They could also be accused of jumping on the 'spyplane as band name' bandwagon, thus being even less oringinal. | Spyke Payan | ||
| SR71 | SR-71 is the name of a retired (in 1999) Air Force jet nicknamed "The Blackbird". It was a long-range recon plane with top speed of Mach 3+ (more than 3 times the speed of sound) and could travel at 85000 feet. This baby was BAD!! | Jay Hamm | ||
| SR71 | It's possible that the name comes from the supersonic jet - the "SR71 Blackbird". Probability? Pretty safe bet, I'd say. | Piccolo | ||
| SR71 | This is actually the Lockheed Blackbird, the fastest plane in the world and hence not a "stupid band name" | james4real | ||
| SR71 | The band is named after the Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" spyplane. | Gordon | ||
| SR71 | According to the website and interview from Metal Sludge.com, the band was indeed named after the plane of the same name. One member's father had a hand in the design or building of this aircraft. | Jesse | ||
| SR71 | SR71 is a spy aeroplane, successor of U2. Connection with U2 is clear. Although Bono's band might be named not after aeroplane name, there are no doubts about SR71. There are 67600 possible composition of two letters and two digits, and SR71 does not have another meaning (as U2 is also "you too"). | Grzes | ||
| SR71 | It may also be noted that before SR71 they were known as 'Radiostar' but RCA forced them to change their name. Before that they had a much cooler name than both. 'Honor Among Thieves' | ..v.. | ||
| SRC | SRC stands for Scot Richard Case, named after the lead singer. His real name is Scot Richardson. | Duckinshrubb | ||
| St. Lunatics | The St. Louis-bred rap group founded by superstar Nelly took the name "St. Lunatics" as an amalgam of "St. Louis" and "Lunatics". In 2000, Nelly said on the MTV series "Road Home" that he and his boyz do a lot of wild and crazy things in the Lou'... so "Lunatics" worked out perfectly. | Bo 'Ice' Bielefeldt | ||
| Stabbing Westward | When Chris and Mark were in college, they named their band Stabbing Westward because it had a "kill everybody in the school vibe to it" | stabbie | ||
| Stabbing Westward | Stabbing Westward shows up in history books as being the name givin to the movement of the american settlers as they slughtered the native indians in their westward path towards california in search of gold and land. Hence the stabbing of indians while traveling westward. | Brandon | ||
| Stabbing Westward | The name of the band was potentially derived from the Wordsworth poem "Stepping Westward." It may also be related to the band's meeting up at Western Illinois University, as a rebellion to the conservative farming culture of surrounding Macomb, Illinois. | John | ||
| Stabbing Westward | It originated from Chris and Walter's college, Western Illinois University, where they hated the atmosphere so they felt like stabbing everyone. | SWDREAMFan | ||
| Stabbing Westward | They used the name as a way of describing Western Illinois University, where two members went to college. They hated the attitudes of the school, so they felt like they were being stabbed on campus. | electric | ||
| Stabilo | They got their name from the Czech pen company, STABILO. | hamp | ||
| Stacey Q | Her real name is Lynn Stacey Swain, so she used her middle name and addded the initial Q because it sounded like Susie Q which she thought sounded cute. | La Choy | ||
| Staind | Started out life as "stain", but they found out there was already a band with that name. So they added just the "d" without the "e" to be unconventional. | the Marlboroman | ||
| The Standells | The group known for "Dirty Water" picked the name because they would stand around in their agent's office waiting for work. | old | ||
| Standing Innovation | the band's drummer ben came up with the name originally thinking the two words just had a good ring to them. The group really thought about the title 'Standing Innovation' and reflected on how they felt about their music. They declared that 'we've got a new idea, and we're standing up in the crowd to play our music." | derek | ||
| Stanford Prison Experiment | Named after an experiment conducted in Stanford University ,where a group of students were prisoners and another were the wardens, and it was observed how power was misused. | Sharath | ||
| The Stanley Louis Band | This small time indie band is named after 2 characters that lived in the downtown of Madison, WV. Both were considered mentally simple , but very interesting in a sort of twisted way | Jeff | ||
| Starsailor | When James Walsh was younger, he played with the Sailor Moon dolls from Japan. He was inspired by thier flights to the stars, therefore naming the band Starsailor. This is what they said on an interview. | Claudia and Alex | ||
| Starsailor | Before a gig the band's manager asked the lead singer, James Walsh, to name some of his favourite albums. One of these was "Starsailor" by Tim Buckley. The name was used for that gig, and kept on. | Stiff | ||
| The Starting Line | The band was doing a charity race to support kids and the band picked out the name the starting line. | Ben Diaz | ||
| Starving Bluesmen Quartet | They got it from Nix (harmonica player) who was broke and hungry at the time they made their first gig. Although they were a three piece band, they found amusing the idea of a invisible friend playing along or just a memory of a drummer who died from starvation. | Justafan | ||
| The Statler Brothers | The legendary country vocal group took their name from a box of Statler tissues in a hotel room they were staying in. Obviously none of the guys were named Statler, but two of the original members were brothers whose last name was Reid. Interesting trivia: before they were the Statler Brothers. they were called the Kingsmen and were a gospel act. Many naive audience members thought that they were the "Louie, Louie" group, which led them to learn the song due to audience demand. | Mark Speck | ||
| Steel Breeze | Known best for the small 1982 hit "You Don't Want Me Anymore", the group took its name from a line in the Pink Floyd song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". | RJSchex | ||
| Steeleye Span | Named after a character in the song "Horkstow Grange" -- which they didn't get around to recording till their 30th Anniversary album. | mike weber | ||
| Steely Dan | The name is one given by Jack Keroac in some of his writings to refer to characters meant to be representative of William S. Burroughs. In on particular writing, it also means not just the Burroughs character but also refers to a dildo. | R.M. STINEMAN | ||
| Steely Dan | The band's name (like a number of others) is derived from the works of William S. Burroughs: Steely Dan is the name of a giant flying steam-powered dildo that appeared in Burroughs' book Naked Lunch. Fagen once explained, "We just wanted to give the band a little more thrust than most other bands." | GF | ||
| Steely Dan | there 'is' a company..north of Chicago..in Niles,Il..called "the Steely Dan co"..they produced 'industrial vibrators for the machine industry"..they really did/do exist..i have seen the factory..the name steely dan became a coloqualism later..when bored 50's housewives..began using the smaller home model "massagers" for different purposes.. | carcarx42 | ||
| Steely Dan | I was watching this 70's action movie on TV once. I don't remember the name of the movie, but I do remember that the main character wielded a big gun called the Steely Dan. So, that's most likey where the name came from. [Ed.'s note: but it more likely came from the steel vibrator from the novel "Naked Lunch".] | Mr. X | ||
| Steely Dan | Name of a dildo in the William S. Burroughs novel "Naked Lunch." | zap | ||
| Steely Dan | The band's name (like a number of others) is derived from the works of William S. Burroughs: Steely Dan is the name of a dildo that appeared in Naked Lunch. Fagen once explained, "We just wanted to give the band a little more thrust than most other bands." | Anthony E | ||
| Steely Dan | Steely Dan was a steam powered dildo that came in editions I and II in Naked Lunch | Tim Hall | ||
| Steely Dan | A reference to the William Burrows novel "Naked Lunch," in which there was a dildo called "Steely Dan." | slidedaddy | ||
| Steely Dan | A reference from the novel "Naked Lunch", Steely Dan was the nickname of a female sex toy. | Mike | ||
| Steely Dan | True about the Naked Lunch reference, but did you know that the Eagles' "Hotel California" gives an appreciative nod to Steely dan with the lyrics "they stab us with their steely knives..." The reference was a reaction to a Steely Dan song "Everything You Did" which contains the lyrics "turn up the Eagles the neighbors are listening." | Jack | ||
| Steely Dan | In 1973, a Windsor Unimax 5000 computer system came up with 9,087 different names for Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who were then performing under various names. They came up with a list of 50 before narrowing it down to the name 'Steely Dan.' | Larcen Tyler | ||
| Steely Dan | Steely Dan got it's name from a vibrator named "Steely Dan" from William S. Burrough's novel "The Naked Lunch". | HomerFan | ||
| Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy | Stephen was nicknamed Tin Tin cause he looked like main character in the the comic of the same name. He still does. | Stace | ||
| Steppenwolf | The idea for the name Steppenwolf was Jim Morrison's. He suggested it to John Kay. At the time the band went by The Sparrows. | Zach McDonough | ||
| Steppenwolf | From the book Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse, about a lonely suicidal man who is approaching fifty. He finds a lovely young girl who teaches him how to have fun and enjoy life. | Steven Dame | ||
| Steppenwolf | Named after the novel "Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse | Equus | ||
| Steppenwolf | It was a novel written by Herman Hesse. | Tom | ||
| Steps | Everyday when going into the recording studio they had to climb 50 steps, and voila. steps where formed. | Kirsty | ||
| Stereolab | A record label from the 50's, "Vanguard", formed a subsidiary named "Stereolab". "Stereolab's" purpose was simply to create records that test your speakers' alignment and left side-right side high-fidelity, etc. | Bryan McNeely | ||
| Stereophonics | They got the name Stereophonics, because, when they were younger, Kelly and Stuart were sat in Kelly front room,and Kelly saw the name 'Phoenix Stereophonic' on one of the speakers of his dad's cd player. He liked it, shortened it to 'Stereophonics', and it just stuck ever since. | Kat | ||
| Stereophonics | They had a few names before stereophonics, including the applejacks and the tragic love company (medleyed together through three of their favourite band names) but stereophonics came about when kelly was in his grandma's house and noticed her record player said "stereophonic" on the back of it, he took aliking to it and thats how they were named | Martin Fraser | ||
| Stereophonics | They were originally the 'Tragic Love company', till Stuart Cable (drummer) saw the word 'Stereophonic' on his grandma's gramophone. Thus the band was named | Joey | ||
| Stereophonics | They were called Tragic Love Company because it was inspired by the names of 3 of their favourite bands, TRAGIC (Tragically Hip) LOVE (Mother Love Bone) COMPANY (Bad Company) | Onju | ||
| Stevie Nicks | Her real name is Stephanie Nicks. As a little girl, she could not say her name properly. She pronounced it "Tee-dee." It then evolved into Stevie (which is also short for Stephanie), and the name has been with her ever since. Her mother calls her "TD Bird" to this day. | The One and Only Gypsy | ||
| Stevie Nicks | She was born Stephanie Lynn Nicks, but couldn't pronounce Stephanie, so she just called herself Stevie | Britney | ||
| Stevie Nicks | Stevie Nicks was born Stephany Lynn Nicks, but she couldn't say Stephany so her grandfather called her Stevie for short. She looks like a Stevie... | Bob Jenkins Jr. | ||
| StickShift | Trent and Ryan were thinking of band names. Since Ryan had a manual transmission in his car, he thought 'stick shift'. It also represents how nothing is given to you. you must always make it happen if you want to get anywhere in life. | Dunzo | ||
| Stiff Little Fingers | Like a lot of band names, they got their's from a William Burroughs book. | goldie | ||
| Stiff Little Fingers | I reckon they got their name from the Vibrator's song "Stiff Little Fingers" on the album "Pure Mania". | Mark T | ||
| Stiff Little Fingers | It DOES come from the Vibrators song - Burroughs book was called "Dead Fingers Talk". | Gregory | ||
| Stigma | Formed in Sacramento, CA, they were originally a Jazz Swing/Speed Metal band called Left Field due to their strange sound. But had to change it due to a British band of the same name. They later went through various other names, but were unhappy with how one name would limit them to a certain style. When they changed to a more tribal, goth rock sound, they wanted a name that fit their new sound, but didn't stigmatize them to that form of music. Frustrated at trying to think up names to avoid a stigma, the lead singer finally said, "What about Stigma?" | sarah | ||
| Sting | besides the striped shirts it also has something to do with the fact that the guys in the band were White Anglo Saxon Protestants (W.A.S.P.) s | bob riedel | ||
| Sting | Sting got his name form a jazz musician, not by the way he dressed. Forget the archives, it came from the man himself. The clothes may have been inpsired by the name, but not the reverse. I think it's insulting to his image and intelligence to think he would name himself based on how he dressed. | josh | ||
| Sting | He named it after the yellow/black striped sweaters he used to wear. It made him look like a bee. | Siebe Wynberg | ||
| Sting | It's the striped sweater story. I saw an interview where he said it. | Danny | ||
| Sting | He loves J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Sting is the Eleven sword which hobbit Bilbo Baggins uses. | Cagatay Afyon | ||
| Sting | The person who said yellow and black striped shirts is correct. Anyone who thinks differently is obviously not old enough to remember when The Police first came out. That was the most often asked question of all for them. I must have read it a hundred times. Sting wore a black and yellow striped shirt all the time, made him look like a bee. Archives, people, archives. | (SouprGrrl) | ||
| Sting | This is probably wrong but I had a thought. Sting could be a reference to the police tactic of planting evidence on a suspect and observing their reaction (as far as i know). So...The Police-Sting. | RubyTuesday | ||
| The Stone Roses | The band took their name from a 1959 spy thriller of that title by Sarah Gainham. It was published in the UK in 1971 as mass market paperback and one of the band members owned a copy, think it was John Squire. | Michael Daly | ||
| Stone Roses | A contradiction: The Stone Roses could write the most fantastic rock song and the sweetest ballads so they picked two words which contradicted each other Stone (Hard) Roses (Soft) - Led Zep have the same thing going on, but I don't know if that was the reason behind their name. | OceanStar |
Entries starting with S are split into multiple pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
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