This famous rock band has always been tight-lipped about where their name came from. Mark Hoppus, Tom De Longe, and Travis Barker have long been in the music game, but theirs isn’t the 182nd Blink to come about – it’s only the second.
What we know is that, supposedly, De Longe came up with the name “Blink” on a whim. They went with that for a while, but they soon found themselves staring down the barrel of a loaded lawsuit from a pre-established Irish band named the same. Hoppus, De Longe, and Barker tacked on the “-182” to avoid litigation, and the rest is rock history.
Chvrches
With so many bands out there, you now have to head to Google to make sure you aren't stepping on anyone's toes – and to make sure that your chosen name is someone that would actually appear for fans who want to learn more. Such is the reason why Scottish electropop trio Chvrches decided to give their band a bit of a unique spelling.
Initially, they were content to just go by “Churches” until Amy Burrows produced the artwork for one of their early singles, manipulating the font used for the band's name so that the “U” looked like a “V.” The band nodded their heads at each other and made the change.
!!!
Yes, apparently there's a band that is just !!!. Just go ahead and try to guess this one, but good luck. This band is described as post-punk funkers, and they took their name from the 1980 South African comedy movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy". The Khoisan language in the film was subtitled as a bunch of exclamation marks. The Khoisan language uses clicks as part of their speech, which is why this band's moniker is pronounced (and googled) “Chk Chk Chk.”
It's been a hot minute, but "The Gods Must Be Crazy" is still pretty good. It has to do with a small African tribe finding a glass Coke bottle. It's weird but memorable.
Panic! At The Disco
Ah, Panic! At The Disco. Everyone's favorite pop band. It began as a four-person outfit but was reduced to a solo project when everyone but Brendon Urie departed. The prevailing theory is that it comes from the lyrics of The Smiths' “Panic,” but Urie knows the true answer.
He lifted the name wholesale from “Panic,” a song by US indie band Name Taken: “Panic at the disco / Sat back and took it so slow / Are you nervous? / Are you shaking?” It's unknown why Urie liked the lyric, or why he chose something that makes the band sound like it's fifty years old, but it's at least memorable.
Lana Del Rey
As it turns out, this solo act songstress doesn't perform under her given name. Her real name is Elizabeth Woolridge Grant but decided she needed a stage name that reflected the kind of music she was hoping to create.
“I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba.” She went with Lana Del Rey because, as she said, it reminded her of the glamour of the seaside. It's a bright, sunny name, which is interesting since a lot of the Del Ray music has a somewhat somber bend.