It’s been fifty years since Aerosmith began playing music, and we’re still hoping to get another chance to see them play. Three of the founding members – Steven Tyler, Tom Hamilton, and Joey Kramer – are still playing, and it was Kramer who came up with the name.
According to the drummer, it came to him while he was in high school after listening to a Harry Nilson album titled “Aerial Ballet”. Somehow, this turned into “Aerosmith,” and was what Kramer wrote on all his schoolwork. He was convinced that he would be in a band with the name, and he turned out to be correct – but he had no idea just how successful they would be.
Korn
What kind of self-respecting metal band would name themselves after a plant? Founding member Jonathan Davis grew up in Bakersfield, California, which is surrounded by cornfields. His band helped popularize the nu-metal genre. Mostly, though it's a big joke.
Davis spoke to "Kerrang" Magazine about the name: “I laugh my [expletive] off that my band is named Korn. That's the whole reason why we named it that [...] Your band name doesn't have to be mysterious.” As this article clearly proves, he's right on the money about that. Most of these names are just phrases the members thought sounded cool.
The Doors
This iconic Los Angeles rock group is one of the most influential bands of all time, and Jim Morrison led the way the entire time. When the band came together for the first time in 1965, Morrison had already come up with a killer title.
He had been reading Aldous Huxley's "The Doors of Perception", which was about Huxley's experiences with hallucinogenics. The other members of the band accepted the name The Doors, and the rest is history. A short history, unfortunately, since Morrison died at the young age of twenty-seven. The band tried to keep going, but it never had much success without his driving force behind them.
Goo Goo Dolls
When the Goo Goo Dolls released their song “Iris,” it hit the Billboard charts and stayed there for nearly a year. They could have stopped making music right there, content with what they had accomplished, but they didn't rest on their laurels.
They used to go by The Sex Maggots, and when one club outright refused to put such a name on their marquee, they had to come up with a new name, and quick. They went through a magazine, saw the words “goo-goo dolls” in an ad, and made the change. Thankfully.
Matchbox Twenty
Sometimes it's the small things that become important. Just ask Matchbox Twenty's Paul Douchette. He co-founded the band with Rob Thomas and Brian Yale, and his imagination was sparked when he saw a random t-shirt.
They started the band as Tabitha's Secret but split off with some of the other members. Douchette was working at a restaurant when he saw a customer's t-shirt – the shirt had patches all over, as well as a giant number twenty. Douchette only remembered one patch, but that's all he needed: the patch said “matchbox.”