Naming a band is fun, and it sucks. You have lots of opportunity to be creative and to cast your vision. The problem is that your best idea is "stupid" to the singer, or "doesn't make sense" to the drummer, or the bass player informs you that it's actually a slang term for a female body part. (This actually happened to me... I had no idea.)
Names are important in general. But in a band, the name is important for one and only one reason: You want to be remembered. It's OK if the name has a cool tie-in with your musical vision, or communicates something about who you are or where you're coming from — but really it comes down to the audience's memory. If they can't remember it, or spell it, or they couldn't hear it clearly when you said it... then the name hurts you.
Often times, though, the best names come from your life. Somewhat random occurances in your life that that you can encapsulate in a couple words.
When U2 was 'The Hype,' they wrestled with getting a new name. Bono walked in and was insistent that the band be called U2. I think he got the idea from the U2 spy plane. Everybody hated the name. It was stupid. (It really is a dumb name, "You, too??") Somehow, Bono got his way. And it was a good move. I remember when I was about 11, listening on the phone for upcoming concerts in the Houston area. U2 came up on the list. I had never heard of them. But the name was so silly, so dumb, that I never forgot it. It was about 3 years later that I became a huge fan of theirs.
Switchfoot - Easy to remember. Comes from a surfing term for doing an about face on the board. Relates to who the band is (surfers) and what their vision is (switchfoot ties in to repentance).
Jimmy Eat World - One of their brothers draw a picture of one of their other brothers eating the world and wrote 'JIMMY EAT WORLD' underneath. It struck them funny. It's easy to remember.
The Beatles - Why would you name a band after a bug? But it was sure easy to remember.
Radiohead - They got the name from a Talking Heads song. It's hard to forget this name. Before I ever really heard their music, I had heard of them.
A good resource after you find a few you like is to look it up and see if anyone else has used that name. You don't want to have to change your name later. That will be bad business. Good places to search:
- The US Patent and Trademark Office (search for trademarks)
- Myspace
Good luck!
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