As rock and roll got its start in the fifties, the start of people taking wild band names also began. Fats Domino led the way for star and dance machine Ernest Evans. Evans was already called “Chubby” as a nickname by his friends. Then, the rocker put a twist on Fats Domino by picking his own parlor game to tack on to the end of his moniker.
Chubby Checker was born, and because of him we have famous songs like “The Twist,” which was named the biggest chart hit of all time by Billboard in 2008, “Pony Time,” and even the limbo. He’s done so much for us.
Wild Beasts
Wild Beasts used to have a much more intense name: Fauve, which is French for "wild beast", based on the early twentieth-century modern art movement Fauvism, led by French artist Henri Matisse. Fauvism excelled at painterly qualities and strong color instead of the representational or realist values retained by Impressionism.
While Wild Beasts can't exactly portray themselves as painters with their rock music, they still built a solid art-rock following. And though the band has been disbanded since 2018, there's always a chance another acclaimed album will make it through. Several of the members have gone on to create solo projects.
Spock's Beard
While bands like Rush, Genesis, and Pink Floyd got the prog-rock train started, it faltered big time in the eighties and was dead by the nineties. Enter Spock's Beard, fronted by Neal Morse, and the scene was suddenly revitalized big time.
The band's name comes from a famous "Star Trek" original series episode with an alternate dimension, showing us alternate versions of the characters viewers loved. The most famous way to show the difference, on one famous occasion, was that the alternate Spock had a small, neat goatee. The band loved the name, and it's still going today. The name also inspired a Bubbatunes song: “Spock With A Beard.”
Avenged Sevenfold
Matt Sanders, James Sullivan, and Matt Wendt might not be religious, but they still went to the Good Book to find a band name they liked. They came across Genesis 4:24 (“If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold”) and grabbed it for their band.
One look at the album covers or investigation of the lyrics will tell you that this outfit isn't exactly keeping to Biblical roots. They took stage names and started to rock the world, helping to pioneer the metalcore genre, though they eventually went away from the sound toward more hard-rock songs.
Dream Theater
At the top of the prog metal world stands Dream Theater, but they didn't always have that name to work with. Their first name was Majesty, based on founding drummer Mike Portnoy's description of the song “Bastille Day” by Rush. But before long, another band — also named Majesty, oh-so-politely asked the five-man band to try out some other names.
Mike Portnoy's father suggested the name Dream Theater, after a real theater, now demolished, in Monterrey, California. It brings to mind the incredible sights and sounds that the band loves to produce. Every single album contains at least one instance of the word “dream” in the lyrics.