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How To Name Your Band
Starting a band is an exciting venture many of us dream of. It can be a demanding and demotivating process, but if you’re musically talented, your calling is impossible to avoid.
One of the hardest challenges is finding the right band name to suit your image and sound. To make your musical career successful, you want to stand out. A unique name for a unique band.
Don’t worry if it takes a couple of tries, many of the greatest bands of our time went through several name changes before they settled. For example, The Who was briefly called The Detours and The High Numbers, and The Beatles were The Quarry Men.
Why not try our band name generator for inspiration?
20 Band Name Ideas
First, let’s look at some potential band names from our band name generator; I found these by inputting words from the music world. Of course, band names are often very personal so, when using the band names generator, maybe try putting something individual in. Here are my ideas:
- Minnuetaholic
- Bluscape
- Ampomatic
- Rewind Dark
- Toneworks
- Deep Smooth
- Nocturnal Beat
- Reckless Deep
- Sirenwind
- Sonic Bang
- Project Phantom
- Songbird Boom
- Beatops
- Drop Melody
- Light Mix
- Timbre Time
- Ceramic Siren
- Balladscape
- Ghost Tune
- Blues Bridge
20 More Band Name Ideas
- Down Home Agita
- Amperstellar
- Azure Nation
- Tonephile
- Catastrophe
- Chronic Caterwaulers
- Eggcorn
- Highfalutin
- Lushpuppy
- Nine Percent Pockets
- Lackamusical
- Majordemo
- Bass Menagerie
- Mnemonic Miasma
- Murmuration
- Onomatopie
- PseudoSounds
- Slapdash
- Staccato
- Toothsome
Best Real-world Band Names
Some of the best real-world band names are completely out of the park, the sort of thing that makes you wonder how someone ever came up with it. The greatest band names are the ones where you can’t imagine them being called anything else; their name embodies who they are and they embody their name. Led Zeppelin is Led Zeppelin.
Now we’ve seen what our band name generator does, let’s take a closer look at some of the best real-world band names for further inspiration. We’ll unpack why they work and how you might take advantage of their strategy.
The Who
A London rock band formed in the sixties, The Who’s name is perfect in its simplicity. You can so easily imagine that in their earliest performances people would ask who’s playing, to be told “The Who,” evoking a confused “The Who?”
Memorable and understated, The Who is an example of a marketing genius. It states confidence and is sure to stick in everyone’s minds—evidenced that we’re still listening to them almost seventy years later. If you want a simple but effective name, try something like The Who.
Public Enemy
Public Enemy is an American hip-hop group. A name like Public Enemy embodies exactly what hip hop is. Signaling that they’re there to disrupt and disturb, Public Enemy is a name that’s hard to forget.
Try thinking of a name that represents your style or genre of music. Hip hop is so often labeled as troublesome; Public Enemy took that image and ran with it. What can our band names generator come up with for your music genre?
The Band
Not unlike The Who, The Band is effective in its simplicity. It is what it says on the tin; it is The Band. All too often we forget the name of musical artists we’ve heard, clicking our fingers saying “oh what was that band called?” The Band monopolized one of the biggest words in the music world.
Nirvana
Kurt Cobain allegedly wanted his band to have a nice, pretty name. Despite their grunge music, Nirvana’s name inspires peace and serenity. Cobain was doing the opposite of Public Enemy. Rather than tell everyone what they did, Nirvana claimed the opposite.
The clever thing about this is that for many people who know Cobain’s music, when they hear “Nirvana”, they do not think of paradise but the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
If you want to make a name for your band, consider names that are incongruous with your image. If you’re a hard rock band, think about gentle, calming names. If you’re a folk band, what about a strong, tough band name?
Pink Floyd
Named in a spur of the moment, Pink Floyd gets its name from two of their inspirations: Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. A homage to blues music and an easter egg for those in the know, Pink Floyd is a memorable and unique name.
Why not put your favorite musicians’ names into our band name generator and see whether you can come up with anything as clever as Pink Floyd?
Unique Content for the Niche
Before you get too excited using the band name generator to come up with a memorable, chart-topping name for your band, you first need a signature sound. While it might be tempting to play all your favorite songs and copy your inspirational artists, start to think about what might make you unique as a band.
Unfortunately, the majority of musicians fail to make it big. This isn’t mentioned to demoralize you or suggest that you shouldn’t even try. This is simply to remind you that you need to try all the harder to create the unique sound that people want to hear.
If you can come up with a signature sound, you will be way ahead of everyone. Experiment with vocals, drums, and a synthesizer. When you have your ground-breaking edge, use our band name generator to find an equally unforgettable name.
5-Tips for creating unique Band Name ideas
So, we’ve taken a look at what our band name generator can do and what some of the most successful bands are doing. Now let’s turn to what more you might do to make your band name more distinctive.
1. Make it easy to spell and pronounce
While we want you to get creative, don’t get too creative. A name that no one can pronounce or spell might be memorable but it won’t translate very well when people want to tell others about it or look it up. Take Elon Musk’s son as an example, we all know that his name begins with an X but can anyone pronounce or spell it?
You don’t want your band to fade out of existence before you have even begun. However, if you do want to get creative with your band name, consider changing the spelling slightly, but not too much. Yungblud, Linkin Park, and Lynyrd Skynyrd are all successful examples of changing the spelling of words.
2. See if your name is already taken
Make sure no one else has taken your name. We mentioned Pink Floyd’s earlier spur of the moment name change. They were originally called the Tea Lights—the name Pink Floyd was as a result of finding themselves about to go on stage after another band also called the Tea Lights.
Luckily, nowadays we have Google. A quick five-minute search should reveal whether there are any bands with the same or similar name that listeners might confuse you with.
3. Draw from cultural references
Many band names are inspired by cultural references. From books to films, many references are so obscure it can be hard to trace them back to their source. Is there a particular book, film, or TV show that holds a special place in your heart? Any lines or words that are particularly distinctive?
4. Focus on your inspiration
Just as many bands take their names from film and literature, others get their inspiration from other musicians. Frankie Goes To Hollywood named themselves after Frank Sinatra, for example. This is a chance to generate a particularly unique and personal name.
Who inspired you to start playing music? A heartfelt and motivational gesture might be to use them in your band name.
5. Just open a dictionary
Or, if heartfelt isn’t the style you want, a more callous suggestion is to simply open a dictionary and pick the first word you see. Of course, it might take more than a few attempts before finding a more distinctive and suitable word, but you will be surprised how many bands have used this method.
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