10,000 Maniacs. The B-52s. Buffalo Springfield. Cream. The Doors.
Bands find inspiration for their names in literature, film, places, other people, dreams, cartoons, the bible, sports, and, yes, sex and drugs.
Here are a few examples:
10,000 Maniacs
Soon after joining the band guitarist John Lombardo suggested the name 10,000 Maniacs. He was thinking of an old horror movie called “2000 Maniacs” about a Confederate ghost town that takes revenge on some Yankee travelers. “None of us saw the movie and we thought the title was 10,000 Maniacs,” said another band member.
The B-52’s
The B-52’s got their name from the Southern term for a bouffant hairdo, which is the kind of wig the female members used to wear. Also the name of a long range bomber.
Buffalo Springfield
This band is said to have taken their name from the Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company, which manufactured a heavy asphalt roller they saw while stuck in Los Angeles traffic.
Cream
Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker considered themselves to be the “Cream of the crop.” (They were.)
The Doors
Poet William Blake inspired Jim Morrison with the line, “If the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite.”
The Lovin’ Spoonful
John Sebastian credits Fritz Richmond for suggesting the name from the lyrics of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Coffee Song” – “I love my baby by the lovin’ spoonful.”
Oingo Boingo
Swahili for “thinking while dancing.” They started out as a musical theater group called “The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.”
The Pretenders
Named after The Platters song, “The Great Pretender.”
Queen
Freddie Mercury said, “Years ago I thought up the name Queen. It’s just a name, but it’s very regal obviously, and it sounds splendid. It’s a strong name, very universal and immediate. It had a lot of visual potential and was open to all sorts of interpretations. I was certainly aware of gay connotations, but that was just one face of it.”
Red Hot Chili Peppers
According to Anthony Kiedis’ autobiography, Scar Tissue: “We started going through these huge laundry lists of idiotic, meaningless, boring names. To this day both Tree and Flea claim they came up with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It’s a derivation of a classic old-school American blues or jazz name. There was Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five, and also other bands that had Red Hot this or Chili that. There was even an English band that was called Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, who later thought we had stolen their name. But no one had ever been the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
ZZ Top
According to Billy Gibbons in his book Rock & Roll Gearhead, the name comes from the name of blues master B.B. King. They wanted to call themselves Z.Z. King but that was too similar to their hero. So, they figured that “King” was at the “top” so thus settled on ZZ Top.
