Whats in a Band Name: Quite a bit Perhaps

This line of thought  was kicked into gear by the band name Three Dog Night which suddenly appeared on my iGoogle page in the Useless Knowledge Box with the comment that the name came from an old Eskimo Concept of a night so cold you had to bed down with three husky dogs to keep warm. Try to verify this I came upon a website that claimed Three Dog Night was - "Inspired by an Australian Aboriginal custom of sleeping with a dog for warmth on a cold night - a three dog night would be very cold, plus the band had 3 lead singers." - perhaps but the band was American and I think the Eskimo line of reporting appears more accurate.


A few others that may amuse are:

AC/DC - (1)  It is said that one of the band member saw it on an appliance and thought it had something to do with power. (It does mean "alternating current / direct current".)  The band used it not realizing it was also slang for a bisexual- the band claims NOT to be bisexual.  
(2)  In the vogue of other anti-everything bands it stands for Against Christ/Devil's Children.


THE BEATLES - (1) original member Stuart Sutcliffe came up with THE BEETLES , as a play on Buddy Holly's group THE CRICKETS who they loved. They were using the name THE QUARRYMEN and sometimes THE SILVER BEETLES - later it became THE BEATLES emphasizing the BEAT aspect of music (and poetry?). (2)  Lennon lists the influence of the film "The Wild One", which featured a motorcycle gang called the Beetles (unconfirmed). John Lennon is generally credited with combining Beetles and Beat to come up with THE BEATLES spelling. Lennon was also fond of saying he had a vision as a child of a flaming pie in the sky that said "You are Beatles with an "A"


THE BEE GEES - the 60's soft-rockers now best known for disco. "Saturday Night Fever" - some say the BG comes from "Brothers Gibb" since they were brothers named Gibb... however an article on the group suggests that they used the names of 2 friends that helped them get started: Bill Goode and a DJ named Bill Gates... I'll go with the first version.


LED ZEPPELIN - Jimmy Page was drinking with Moon and Entwhistle, who were bitching about their band mates Daltrey and Townshend. They joked about the two of them starting a band with Jimmy, and one of them said "Yeah, that will go over like a lead balloon". When Jimmy formed his own band, he remembered this and thought "Lead Zeppelin" would be good, both from that conversation and the heavy/light contradiction similar to the band named IRON BUTTERFLY. They decided to drop the "a" so Americans wouldn't mispronounce it.


Source ROCK BANDS - Name Origins

See how many Band names you can find in the picture 

If you want to see the answers go to image link on Flickr.


Some of the name stories are quite interesting if a little hard to verify.