Dot Tumblr Dot Com, on the other hand, would be an awful name for a band, if only because of how hard it would be to direct people to your band's website.
"Department stores, for example, started to market these air purifiers that could filter out harmful PM 2.5. Citizens were also adopting PM 2.5 as the title of music festivals!"
An unusual yet cool-sounding name or phrase is mentioned by one character, and then another character jokingly remarks what he said would be a good name for a band; usually rock or metal. This generally parodies the Word Salad Title naming convention of many Real Life rock bands.
This is not a list of all bands in fiction, and neither is this a list of what real-life bands were named after (clearly, for any existing band someone thought that its name was a good one). For the latter, see That Other Wiki.
Compare Trope Names for a Band.
Examples:
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Advertising
- An ad for a popular Philippine chips brand (shown at 5:36 in this video compilation) shows a group of friends struggling to come up with a name for the band they want to organize... until one guy has an epiphany while looking at a bag of chips. The newly-established band thus decides to name themselves "Tear Here", after the instruction located at the top of the bag.
Anime & Manga
- When describing her younger siblings' propensity for lies and tall tales in Kiniro Mosaic she reveals she's jealous of the nickname they've earned of the "Fibbing Brothers" because she thinks it's a cool name for a band.
- Subverted with K-On!. Everyone pitches in to try and name the light music club's band (most of which would fit the trope) but after several inconclusive debates, their teacher just names the band for them out of frustration. The name itself ("Houkagonote Tea Time") is pretty fitting since the club's favorite activity (even more than practicing) is eating snacks and drinking tea together.
Audio Plays
- In the song We Both from 36 Questions, Judith mentions that she and Jase both have the "best worst name for a band". According to Word of God, the names are "Screaming Dick Torture" for Judith and "Show Canceled" for Jase.
- Monty Python recorded a sketch called "Rock Notes" for Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album, in which a band called "Dead Donkeys" reported their split. During the sketch a number of alternate band names the Dead Donkeys considered using were mentioned, including, "Sole Meunière, then Dead Sole, Rock Cod, Turbot, Haddock, White Bait, the Plaices, Fish, Bream, Mackerel, Salmon, Poached Salmon, Poached Salmon In A White Wine Sauce, Salmon Meunière, and Helen Shapiro." Years later, in a truly meta note, another band name mentioned in the sketch was adopted by an actual rock band, Toad the Wet Sprocket. In Eric Idle's own words, "I was trying to think of a name that would be so silly nobody would ever use it or dream it could ever be used." Apparently, it was just silly enough that someone thought it would be hilarious to use it anyway. His reaction to hearing a real DJ announce the name for the first time? "I nearly drove off the freeway."
Comic Books
- King in Black:
- When images of Knull and his invasion force are shown to those present at the Galactic Summit, Nova, who was still taking therapy sessions to help cope with his PTSD from the Annihilation Wars and the three Cancerverse invasions, jokes that the images look like a heavy metal album cover he had to try to lighten the mood. He quickly apologizes for sounding insensitive.
- Similarly, while fighting Knull's hordes, Pyro notes, "These dragons are delightfully metal. Maybe I'll make one my next tat."
- Lula und Yankee: Yankee invents the name of his girlfriend's band, "Silence of the Amps". And proves so apt at it that he has the idea to make a business of it.
- Thunderbolts: In-Universe, Deadpool notes this of "The Mercy Problem" in Thunderbolts (2012) #21.
Comic Strips
- Doonesbury in the '80s did an arc about the recording of USA For Africa's "We Are the World". Producer Quincy Jones delivers a speech to the gathered rock musicians, saying, "We want to show that we care about hunger in Africa." Cue two extras in the back:
Extra 1: Who's "Hunger in Africa"?
Extra 2: I think it's an Australian band. - In the comic strip Zits, Jeremy and his friends are brainstorming names for their Garage Band, when his dad walks in and says "Goat Cheese Pizza?" They go with it, apparently not realizing that he's actually offering them a pizza with goat cheese on it.
- And then there is their alternate band name 'Creepy Clown Head Funeral':
Walt: You got a ticket?? For What? Speeding? Reckless driving?
Jeremy: (reading ticket) "Transporting an unsecured giant clown head during the disruption of a funeral procession."
Walt Face Palms
Jeremy: I can pretty much guarantee that it won't happen again.
Pierce: At least it gave us an idea for a new band name. (reveals T-shirt reading Creepy Clown Head Funeral)
Fan Works
- Advice and Trust: Meta example. As explaining details about his story, Strypgia said:
Strypgia: He believes that Rei and the Dummy Plugs (Oooh, must copyright that band name!) will be sufficient to that task.
- Beyond the Outer Gates Lies... A high school library?: Harry reflects that "Dragon Made of Swords" would be an awesome band name if it wasn't for one trying to kill two of his friends.note
- In The Cosigner Terry comments that his father was voted off the Hogwarts Board of Governors for suggesting Muggle Studies be made compulsory from first year on up.
Hermione: ...But that's an excellent idea! That would make it so much easier to blend and mingle with muggles!
Daphne: Exactly the point. Why blend or mingle with lesser beings? Then the impressionable little purebloods might get mad ideas about befriending them or even marrying them.
Harry: If we allow that, how are we supposed to get all the family trees fused together into one massive inbred shrub?
Terry: I call Massive Inbred Shrub as my band name if I ever start one. - In the first few chapters of The Death Eaters' Disney World Trip, the Lemony Narrator remarks that the 'Death Eaters' is a good name for a band. Chapter 3 also features airport security officials dismissing the Death Eaters' robe-clad appearances as "another quirky heavy metal band".
- In The Family that Chooses You Harry qualifies as a basic medic and is given a first aid pouch.
George: You going to wear that around all the time?
Harry: Well, maybe, or at least tie it to my school bag. I'm glad I had it out for easy access on the train. Now that I know how to do some basic healing, I see everything as a potential hazard.
Fred/George: That's our band name, Potential Hazard.
Katie: Who's potential and who's hazard? - Harbinger (Finmonster): When Ember hears that the strings of her guitar are Strings of Fate, this is her reaction.
- In Jake English's Mysterious Theater of Scientific Romance from the Year 3000, while reviewing The Darker Knight Al points out that "Clowns Only Die Twice" would be a good band name.
- In Hogwarts Has Had Enough several goblins are stunned speechless after Harry relates his second-year adventure with the basilisk. He looks at them and thinks that "Gobsmacked Goblins" would be a cool band name.
- A meta example, but many readers of My Immortal have thought that "Vlodemort and da Death Deelers" sounds like a good name for a band. The fact that Voldemort and his followers were disguised as My Chemical Romance definitely didn't help.
- Operation ECLIPSE (Lermis): Both Sonic and Vilmis think that "Diamond Cutters", the name of a mercenary group, sounds like a good name for a rock band.
- The Real Us:
Harry: I decided to go outside and see Hagrid, when who should I run into? Bad Faith and the Book-Ends. [beat] They could be a band!
- Some Secrets:
Yes, Snape and the nights always made things...difficult. Snape and the Nights. It sounded like a cheesy indierock band.
- In the Glee Slash Fic, Story of Three Boys, while a homophobic pastor is talking about "wayward youth" and "vandalism", Finn says that he's going to start a band called Wayward Youth and that their first album will be called 'Vandalism' and have naked dudes go-go dancing on the cover.
- In Thalia Grace: The Will of a Ninja, Kakashi tells his students (now including Thalia Grace) that Haku belonged to the Anbu Black Ops, also known as the the Inferno Squad. Thalia immediately says that sounds like a great name for a heavy metal band.
- Venenum Vinco Bane:
Snape: Minerva, have you wondered how Lucius Malfoy and the Death Eaters got in? Sweet Merlin, that sounds like a rock band.
Films — Live-Action
- Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life: When Justin's mom discovers Justin's younger brother keeping a porno CD-ROM, her husband suggests there might be another explanation for the disc's title, to which she snarkily responds "Like what? Virgin Vaginas are a new band?", likely thinking of band names like Barenaked Ladies, Butthole Surfers and Gay For Johnny Depp.
- A close variant in George of the Jungle when Lyle comments that "White Ape", George's nickname in local legends, sounds like the name of a mixed drink.
Lyle: Ah, yes, bartender, I'll have two Black Russians and a White Ape.
- Iron Man 3 has Tony fighting Ellen Brandt, an Extremis-empowered Dark Action Girl. After she walks through the flames he placed to get in her way, Volcanic Veins all ablaze, he boasts that he's dated hotter girls than her. When Brandt responds with "That all you got? A cheap trick and a cheesy one-liner?", Tony notes that he should name his autobiography after that line.
- Spider-Man: No Way Home has the Spider-Men of the MCU, the Spider-Man Trilogy, and the Amazing Spider-Man Series meet. When the MCU Spidey mentions being in The Avengers, the other two, being the only superheroes on their Earths, have no idea what he's talking about, and the "Amazing" Spider-Man asks "Is that a band?"
- Something of a Running Gag throughout The World's End, Gary will hear a phrase and tell Steven to write it down. He turns it round in the climax of the film. "Gary King and the Enablers" in particular has become a Memetic Mutation.
Literature
- Most of the nonsense phrases Dave Barry said "would make a good name for a rock band" (which tended not to be so nonsensical when viewed in context). The Federal Duck in particular is a truncation of the real-world "Federal Duck Stamp Program". His website has compiled a list of these joke suggestions here.
- Inverted in the 2009 book Battle of the Band Names, where the author Bart Bull lists some bad ideas for band names in the prologue and the opening chapter.
At night sometimes, if you listen closely, you can hear their anguished howls, lonely and piercing, like banshees, like coyotes, like Geddy Lee: "I told them Sister Mary Bob was a stupid name!"
- Emily in Emily the Strange: Stranger and Stranger comments that a number of phrases she used would be good names for bands such as Sewer Mural and Dark Artifact.
- The Hectic Glow from The Fault in Our Stars, a band "so beautifully underground that they don't even exist".
- The Half-Life of Planets: In the hospital, Liana hears her parents mention specific gravity while talking about her dad's test results and thinks that Specific Gravity would make a good band name.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Mentioned in And Another Thing..., when Arthur Dent starts to "understand his daughter's feelings of isolation."
Arthur Dent: We are cosmic nomads, which would be a great name for a band, by the way, interstellar drifters with no one to cling to in this eternity of displacement but each other.
- In Illuminatus! by Shea and Wilson, there is a huge music festival on Walpurgisnacht, with a plethora of Good Names for Rock Bands. Behold! A few of the names became notably defictionalized, including Steppenwolf and Nirvana.
- In the Dirk Gently book The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, we get a twofer: not only is "Pugilism and the Third Autistic Cuckoo" used directly as a band name (and chosen because it can mean anything you want it to), we also have the author Howard Bell, who makes up for his absolute lack of writing talent by having the perfect name for the front of a book cover. You just put "Bell" in big letters across half the page, and "Howard" in a slightly smaller font above it. (One might think that one Douglas Adams may have been a little inspired on that one.)
- In Rock N Roll Babes From Outer Space by Linda Jaivin, a rock band decides that Succubus would be a cool name, but no-one knows what the word actually means. So one of them goes to look up the word, returning to the room long after the conversation has moved on to another topic to say, "It's a demon that fucks people when they're asleep." Needless to say, everyone is rather confused by this non-sequitur comment.
- SF author John Scalzi has a list on his "Whatever" blog. "Flagged by Tumblr" is especially rocknrolly.
- This is referenced in John’s novel The Kaiju Preservation Society, where a Running Gag is characters remarking that gross or weird aspects of kaiju biology (i.e. Tumescent Cloaca) would make good band names.
- In Tricky Business (also by Dave Barry), an untalented rock band with the uninspired name Arrival is desperately searching for a new name (one rejected name: "We May Suck, But We Play Better Than You Dance") when they play a gig at a joint whose rowdy patrons beat up their frontman Johnny for not playing country music. The mention of "contusions" (bruises) in the medical report of Johnny's injuries gives the band the idea of changing their name to Johnny and the Contusions, though the story behind this name doesn't bear repetition.
- The Witcher: In his character-defining scene in Blood of the Elves, Dandelion and his two female companions hastily tidy up their clothing. "The modesty of harlots, thought the poet, was not at all a bad title for a ballad."
- In the acknowledgements section of David Feldman's When Do Fish Sleep?, while thanking the people at Harper & Row, he comments that "Brenda Marsh and the sales reps" sounds like a Motown act.
- Zero History by William Gibson: Heidi is talking about about materials for making darts:
"Dense", said Heidi, "but no match for wolfram. Old name for tungsten. Should've been a metal band: Wolfram."
Live-Action TV
- In Battlestar Galactica, when Anders says that Cylon Leoben might have been right about Starbuck having a special destiny, Starbuck replies that "Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny" sounds like a bad cover band.
- Best Friends Whenever has "Heart Rocket": While discussing a rocket-launching competition (It Makes Sense in Context), Barry and Naldo agree that this would be a good name for a band. A couple of episodes later, Cyd and Shelby find themselves in an Alternate Timeline where Heart Rocket is a real band, with Barry and Naldo as its founding members.
- It's been mentioned a couple of times on Big Fat Quiz of the Year (and its spinoffs) that the names Noel Fielding comes up with for his teams tend to fall in this category, such as 'The Electric Moccasins' or 'Hot Shame and the Indoor Kites'. Noel, for his part, thinks 'Sloth Junk' would make a good band name after Jimmy moaned that he could see the genitals of a sloth brought in for a question.
- A similar joke is used early in Season 5 of Canada's Worst Driver when the drivers have to reverse a stretch limousine with each other as passengers. Dr. Gembora summed up the challenge as "eight bad drivers in a stretch limo", which Peter Mellor remarked sounded like a movie title.
- Corner Gas: After promotional mugs made for Corner Gas and The Ruby come back reading "Corner G and The Rub", Brent decides this will be the name of his act if he ever decides to become a rapper.
- The Daily Show:
- On April 7, 2010, the show covered reports of recent scandals with the Republican National Committee. After a CNN clip regarding the RNC's "Lesbian Bondage Fiasco", Jon Stewart answered, "If 'Lesbian Bondage Fiasco' isn't the name of an hard-edged indy band by tomorrow, I'll be very disappointed." It worked, as according to Urban Dictionary, "Lesbian Bondage Fiasco" is a Canadian indie band. It's also a song from the group Aniki.
- On February 21, 2012, Jon Stewart, commenting on a Virginia abortion bill, mentioned "Transvaginal Ultrasound" as being a 15-member jazz fusion band.
- On October 23, 2013, they discussed one Fox News commentator's statement that the Tea Party Republicans were a "suicide caucus", with Jon saying that's impossible because in 1983 he started Suicide Caucus, a speed-punk-ska-jazz fusion band.
- On April 7, 2010, the show covered reports of recent scandals with the Republican National Committee. After a CNN clip regarding the RNC's "Lesbian Bondage Fiasco", Jon Stewart answered, "If 'Lesbian Bondage Fiasco' isn't the name of an hard-edged indy band by tomorrow, I'll be very disappointed." It worked, as according to Urban Dictionary, "Lesbian Bondage Fiasco" is a Canadian indie band
- In a second-season episode of Dark Angel, Max and Alec explore a seemingly abandoned research lab in Terminal City. After finding a huge snake, Max remarks that it's like Ames White and his Familiars (a Breeding Cult that reveres snakes) are following her around. Alec states that "Ames White and His Familiars" sounds like a rock band. After they leave, a mental patient retrieves the snake and tells it that does sound like a rock band.
- Doctor Who:
- In "Arachnids in the UK", the Doctor says "the spider mother in the ballroom", then comments that it sounds like "the best novel Edith Wharton never wrote."
- In "The Vanquishers", a Sontaran commander armed with a BFG barges in on Professor Jericho.
Stenck: I have you now, nameless human!Jericho: I, sir, am Professor Eustacius Jericho, scourge of scoundrels! (beat) I wish I'd written that autobiography. What a good title.
- Occurs in Fargo: Season Two's third episode, "The Myth Of Sisyphus". Lou has a stand off with Mike in Skip's typewriter store and addresses him and his associates as "Mike Milligan and the Kitchen Brothers", and Mike says that Lou makes them sound "like a prog rock band".
- Gilmore Girls: When Lorelai is at an event with her parents and secret boyfriend, she tells Rory "I'm going to go make out in the coat room. Don't eat my chicken." Rory answers "That's going on your headstone."
- Great Performances: In Recording The Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks, which shows the recording of the cast album of the show, at one point, when checking his headphones, Nathan Lane says it sounds "tinny and odd", but then considers maybe it is he who sounds "tinny and odd", then says, "Tinny & Odd! I have all their albums!"
- In an episode of iCarly, Carly and Sam are drinking smoothies and Sam complains about "strawberry lumps". Carly tells her that "The Strawberry Lumps" would be a good name for a band.
- Jessica Jones, in a great example of Snark-to-Snark Combat.
Kilgrave: So, you found my testing arena. All by yourself?
Jessica: Just followed the trail of misery.
Kilgrave: Oh, that's a good band name. - Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: From the May 11, 2025 episode, after quoting a former president of the Alliance Defending Freedom (a conservative Christianist version of the American Civil Liberties Union) saying his aim and methods were "Christian love, kill, kill, kill", John Oliver allows that that "would be a spectacularly good metal band name."
- In an episode of MythBusters that focused on the transmission of diseases, Adam noted that the fluorescent dye in the test (simulating a runny nose) had spread all over, coating everything in a touch of orange. He then joked that "Touch of Orange" was the name of his cover band.
- On NCIS: New Orleans, Sebastian, the assistant evidence tech:
Sebastian: I'm still trying to identify the species, but it's some kind of benthic worm. Which, by the way, if I ever have a band, will be the name of said band.
- On QI, Stephen Fry once demonstrated contempt for the book The Da Vinci Code, describing it as "loose stool water". Alan Davies then commented that "Loose Stool Water" would make a good name for a blues singer.
- The "title for your autobiography" variant also appears, when Sue Perkins refers to having a "wet bottom on the night bus".
- Andy from Parks and Recreation is the lead singer in a rock band, but he's never really been satisfied with its name, meaning that he's completely serious when he makes comments like this.
April: So tomorrow, I lead a public forum in Leslie's Fleetwood Mac sex pants.
Andy: Fleetwood Mac Sex Pants, new band name, I call it. Ooh, you know what? Maybe just Fleetwood Mac. - During an episode of Reno 911!, the cops discover that Wiegel's new boyfriend is a serial killer. They feel conflicted about telling her because she actually seems happier. One of them points out that she's normally borderline-suicidal, but keeps screwing up her suicide attempts (and subsequently forcing the department to devote resources to suicide watches), and thus having someone around who's experienced at killing might be better, "like a death leprechaun". Another cop declares that "Death Leprechaun" would be an awesome name for a band.
- In the The Sarah Jane Adventures episode "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith", Clyde mentions that Pantheon of Discord (the group of higher-dimensional entities to which the Trickster belonged) would be a good name for a band. The Doctor wholeheartedly agrees.
- One episode of Scrubs has Elliot buy a new couch in the shape of a car that reminds her of her grandfather who died in a seven-car pile-up. JD says it sounds like a good name for a band, and Elliot reminds him he told that joke at the funeral.
- In an episode of a Polish sitcom Swiat Wedlug Kiepskich, the main protagonist sees his mother-in-law browse a casket catalog and decides to cash in on it by building her a custom one. When he has a brief idea of equipping it with a built-in sink, one of his neighbours points out that dead don't bathe, to which his daughter comments that it sounds like a cool name for a rock band.
Music
- On a family vacation in the Virgin Islands in the mid-1980s, underage high school student Bob Whelan and his brother visited a local bar, "discussing potential names for his high school band". A bar patron, who Whelan believes to have been none other than Freddie Mercury, overheard the discussion, shouting across the bar the band name Whelan would use professionally in The '90s: Angry Salad.
- Barenaked Ladies was named after a joke band name that founders Steven Page and Ed Robertson came up while at a Bob Dylan concert. Robertson first used the name as a placeholder when he and Page were preparing to perform at a Battle of the Bands contest, and the name stuck.
- Probably every real band in recent history owes its name to this trope to some extent, but Def Leppard gets credit for actually being named after a Fake Band — lead singer Joe Elliott had created a bunch of fake rock bands and designed posters for them in art class.
- Everything but the Girl got their name from a local furniture store, which had a slogan reading "for your bedroom needs, we sell everything but the girl!"
- Post-hardcore band Fear Before got their name when one of their members read The Denver Post one day and saw a headline on the 2002 Hayman fire titled "The Fear Before The March of Flames." The band were named just that until 2008, when they shortened their name.
- According to their online bio, Flight of the Conchords got their name simply because Jemaine Clement noticed their toilet was called "Conchord", suggested it to Bret McKenzie, who responded "What about Flight of the Conchords?", which both casually agreed to before their first gig.
- A variation: while driving in New York State late at night, musician Sammy Hagar was pulled over for going 62mph at a time when the US's nation-wide speed limit was 55mph. He famously told the cop "I can't drive 55!" He then realized that would make a good name for a song as the cop wrote him a speeding ticket, and "I Can't Drive 55" has been one of his most popular songs ever since.
- The name of pop-punk band American Hi-Fi, founded by ex-Letters To Cleo / Miley Cyrus drummer Stacy Jones, was suggested in conversation by Keith Richards.
- Jello Biafra has a spoken word routine, "Names for Bands". Rejecting names like "Bad Attitude" or "The Young ____", he suggests Lost Orgasm, John Wayne On Acid, and Primer Grey Erection. More here.
- This joke is a mainstay of Paul and Storm live performances, most evident in their over-long performances of "The Captain's Wife's Lament" in the "X is the name of my Y cover band" format.
- The Canadian indie band Preoccupations' original name Viet Cong was inspired by some rehearsal banter when one of their guitarists held his guitar like a machine gun.
- Voltaire did this with his album Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children, which was how a fan described listening to his music. It also made its way into a song.
Podcasts
- Behind the Bastards:
- An episode on Narendra Modi and the origin of the BJP had "Mutual Genocide", which was highlighted as a cool name for a metal band.
- The episode on "The Worst Birth Control Device Ever Invented" brought forth several of these, most notably "Vaginal Death Crab", which became a Running Gag for the episode.
- Film Reroll's Winnie the Pooh episode gives us Vääg Umlaut, and their first single, Urinal Rabbit.
- Hello From the Magic Tavern: In Season 4, Episode 46, when Crone Bakeress questions why Chunt isn’t a puddle of muscles after removing his own spine, he remarks that “Puddle of Muscles” would be a good band name, and writes down the phrase.
- House to Astonish on the subject of Flashpoint (2011) titles with an "X and the Ys" format, as seen on the quote page.
- This comes up a few times during The Last Podcast on the Left's series on the Norwegian Black Metal scene. In fact, the title of their second episode, Orc Urinal, is the result of them coming up with the name during the show and thinking it would make a good metal band name.
- In an episode of Tom Scott's podcast Lateral, a contestant mentions "bovine descenders" — people whose job is to rescue livestock that has climbed up something and can't get down — and Tom jokes that he once saw Bovine Descenders playing at Glastonbury.
- In an episode of Plumbing the Death Star about Harry Potter, the episode's guest (Shanks) mentions magical woman who attended a witch hunt for fun and calls her a "masochistic sex witch hanging around Salem." After everyone laughs at his description, he jokes that that's what he's naming his next rock band.
- RiffTrax:
- According to the riff of 300, "Submission" would be a good name for a Muslim rock band.
- In the Jurassic Park riff, there's a Running Gag that Mike Nelson played the bass in bands with bizarre, random names that happened to come up in either the movie itself or in one of "Weird Al" Yankovic's jokes.
Radio
- Also a Running Gag on The Armstrong And Getty Show. Whenever some odd but awesome phrase is uttered, Joe Getty will usually say something like "(phrase) is the name of my new (genre) band."
- One round in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue involves the contestants having to say words that aren't related, with the opposing team challenging if they see a connection. A Running Gag has Barry Cryer challenging on ridiculous word-combos, insisting it was the name of a band in the sixties.
Barry Cryer: Sharabang Sperm? Sixties rock band.
- The above example becomes funnier when the show's pianist Colin Sell starts playing and Barry has to improvise a song on the spot.
Sharabang! Sharabang! Sharabang, lend me your sperm!
Sharabang! Sharabang! Sharabang, it's the end of term!
Sharabang, Sharabang,
I want to be a be-he-moth!
- A Running Gag on The Kevin and Bean Show. Whenever someone says a good example, one of the other hosts will cut in, "I hear they're headlining Coachella this year!" or some variation.
- In one episode of The Museum Of Curiosity, Andrew O'Neil (of The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, so a man who recognises a random phrase's band name potential when he hears it), talking about class-issues on the Victorian necropolis railway quotes one commentator talking about "the body of some profligate spendthrift" before interrupting himself to say "Which is a good name for a band. 'We are Prolifigate Spendthrift!'"
- Preston of the Preston & Steve Show keeps a list of good rock band names and adds to it whenever a good one comes up.
- The Ricky Gervais Show: Karl talks about looking through a gay magazine, describing the focus as "Just cock. Just, 100%, like, let's just talk about the knob..." Ricky comments that "100% Cock" would be a good name for a gay magazine.
- In an episode of The Unbelievable Truth Jeremy Hardy challenges (correctly) when Graeme Garden talks about the origins of shellac and its use in confectionery, claiming "Beetle Arse-Juice Sweets" was an indie band he saw recently.
- One episode of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me had a Southern caller tell the panel that the name of her punk band was "Sex Barbecue". They apparently took two of their favorite things and put them together.
Theater
- In The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), while talking about the Exodus, this line is quoted: "And the Lord God cursed the wicked serpent to henceforth crawl about on its belly. Presumably, the wicked serpent had legs prior to that; indicating that it was more of a wicked lizard. And the Lord God thought to himself that Wicked Lizard would be a good name for a Heavy Metal Band." (Possible reference to Noise Rock band The Jesus Lizard, which is actually named after a type of lizard.)
Video Games
- Played with in Brütal Legend when Lita decides to come to terms with Lars' death.
Lita: Never again! I'd sooner have scorpions crawl down my face than tears.
Eddie: ...That'd make an awesome album cover, actually. - Comes up a few times in Kingdom of Loathing:
- The Stone Mariachis: "The mariachis begin to play a sinister song. As the song's tempo increases, a rumbling begins, deep beneath the ground. As the mariachis reach a dire crescendo (Hey, have you heard my new band, Dire Crescendo?) the gate behind the statues slowly grinds open, revealing the way to the Sorceress' courtyard."
- The Daily Dungeon: "Since you're magically protected from sleaze, you easily focus your will and cross the room with nary a glance at the naughty periodicals. And wouldn't 'Naughty Periodicals' be a great name for a band?"
- Astral Badger: "<name> claws your opponent with his pan-dimensional claws and bites him with his astral teeth for X damage. Ladies and gentlemen, coming to the stage right now: ASTRAL TEETH!"
- Uniclops in a Crown of Thrones: "<name> lays her head in its lap, doing X damage with her horn. It's a wonder most unicorn stories don't end with perforated virgins, and that Perforated Virgins isn't a band already."
- Giant skeelton: "It kicks you with a multitude of phalanges. A Multitude of Phalanges was, by the way, my favorite 80's band."
- Batblade: "This is a de-winged stab-bat. Have you heard my new band, the Dewinged Stab-Bats?"
- One-winged Stab Bat: "This is a partially re-winged de-winged stab bat. Have you heard my new band, the Partially Rewinged Dewinged Stab Bats?"
- Rewinged Stab Bat: "This is a fully re-winged de-winged stab bat. Have you heard my new band, The Joke That Got Repeated Until It Wasn't Funny Anymore?"
- The Stone Mariachis
- League of Legends has several virtual bands that are both the basis of music-based skin themes and serve as the basis for defictionalized music acts, and all of them are based on some terms coined from the game's mechanics: Pentakill is a Heavy Metal act (named after Announcer Chatter if one player kills all five enemy champions in a short span of time), K/DA is a Girl Group inspired by Korean Pop Music (named after the game's "kill/death/assist" ratio), True Damage is a Hip-Hop group (named after the game's term for damage that ignores all damage resistances), and HEARTSTEEL is a Boy Band also with K-Pop influence (named after a tank item).
- The Lion in Winter:
This is, like, land with grass on it. This being Africa, maybe “grassland” isn’t the right word ... Steppe? Tundra? Pampas? Svelte, maybe? Well, maybe not. Now, why do all the synonyms you can think of sound like avant-garde pop groups?
- Night in the Woods: If you talk to Mr. Chazokov on the first day of Act 2, he'll tell Mae he's looking for "dusk stars". You can have Mae reply "Dusk Stars is the name of my shoegaze band."
Web Animation
- DEATH BATTLE!: In "Metal Sonic VS Zero" Boomstick wonders if Metal Sonic is into Heavy Metal, as names of his abilities, like "Maximum Overdrive" and "Metal Overlord", would make for a good band name.
- In Lee Hardcastle's Ghost Burger, Ritchie relates the spooky tale of an abandoned theme park ride which mysteriously started running again, attracting the attention of one teenage boy, who disappeared inside it and didn't come out, with the car instead leaving a trail of blood in its wake. He then states that the boy died on the ride, and contemplates that it would indeed make a good band name.
- Homestar Runner:
- In "Cool Things", after a bored Homestar paints the words "Cool Tapes" on the wall of Marzipan's living room, she ends up forming a band called "Cool Tapes" with Strong Mad and the Cheat.
- In the Strong Bad Email "flag day", Strong Bad sees the sender has signed their email "Pablo, Phoenix", and remarks that "Pablo Phoenix" sounds like a good stage name for a pop singer.
Strong Bad: Look Out Ladies Productions presents: Pablo Phoenix, this Friday at the civic center.
- In "old comics", Strong Bad gets an email from a sender in "West Islip, NY" and remarks that "West Is Lip" sounds like the name of a British New Wave band.note
- From the Valentine's Day Episode of Teen Girl Squad: "She Likes Cloth. That's a good band name."
- Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions uses this as a running gag. Examples include Penelope and the Suitors, Durga and the Matrikas and Lucy's Boyfriend Squad.
- Red vs. Blue had a variant, where after being warned about Thundersnow, Jax Jonez comments "Great name for a movie".
Webcomics
- 1/0: Well, album title.
- In THAT, a one-off comic set in John Allison's Bobbinsverse, Cloud Cuckoolander Shelley Winters is compulsively frivolous, even during an attack by giant vampire moths.
Terrified Secondary Character: I don't want to end up MANGLED BY INSECTS.
Shelley: Excellent band name! - In this Chopping Block, Butch learns, to his disappointment, that Matricide Anonymous is a band.
- In the Existential Comics strip "Punk Rock Philosophy", the characters are actually trying to think up a name for their band, referencing philosophical concepts, but where this trope comes up most clearly is when Camus remarks that all of Kierkegaard's book names sound like band names.
- The Last Days of FOXHOUND: In this comic, Liquid Snake thinks that "Outer Heaven" (the mercenary nation-state for hire created by Big Boss) would be an "awesome name for a metal band".
- Matchu has "Some Whores" and "Blowjobs", which are explicitly pointed out as BAD band names and freak out the clerk working at the record store.
- The Order of the Stick #1033: When the best phrase O'Chul can come up with to describe an attacking yrthak is "sonic reptilian unicorn", Lien immediately claims that at least she has a good name if she ever quits being a paladin to form a punk rock band.
- A conversation in Paranatural between Max and enthusiastic school reporter Suzy:
Suzy: They're Student Council. Have you heard the rumours, Max?
Max: is that a band name
Suzy: They say the Student Council is looking for someone.
Max: if it isn't I call that band name - Raven's Dojo has the recurring character Metalhead, who occasionally pops in and steals lines out of context that would make good names for rock bands, much to Dornail's dismay.
Dornail: Dammit, Metalhead! Those are my sweet band names!
- Referenced in at least three xkcd strips: Worst Band Name Ever (119), Tumblr (1025), and Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect (2241).
Web Original
- Of course, there are several band name generators online.
- A site from around 2001 had a list of created names that up-and-coming bands were welcome to take as long as they let the site owners know so they could remove the name. It had names like Catshit 500, Lee Iacocca and the Board of Trustees, Janet Jackson's Coffee Grounds For Divorce, The %, Wipe, Winconsintration Camp, Dick Clark's Face, and Pontius Pilate and the Nail Drivin' Five.
- There is also a Reddit subreddit.
- The Agony Booth:
- The recap of Southland Tales one of the responsible says that MegaZeppelin "is so going to be the name of my first album, by the way".
- A later article on Star Trek V: The Final Frontier does a Call-Back:
"Mindzonked Sulu and the Morons (great name for a punk band—in fact, I hear they're touring with Megazeppelin right now)."
- The recap of Southland Tales one of the responsible
- AlternateHistory.com notes that "Obama and the Republicans", a phrase which comes up frequently in U.S. political discussions, is a good name for a rock band.
- The "By Fall Out Boy" meme on Tumblr, which posited instances of A Rare Sentence as the long title of a Fall Out Boy song. Exaggerated in some instances, where the sentence itself is said to be the title of a song from an equally as notorious band.
phrankiero: Is This A Fall Out Boy Song or a My Chemical Romance Album Title
frerard: by Panic! at the Disco - Not Always Right: One of the poster's cousins in "This Mental Image Just Won't Slip Away" not only thought this of "Freshly-Buttered Chihuahua", they actually went through with it.
- Cracked:
- From an article on racism by David Christopher Bell:
Clint Eastwood recently said that we were living in what he called the "pussy generation" — an overly PC era of "walking on eggshells" and an inadvertent pitch for Kanye West's next album title.
- The classic article 100 Unintentionally Hilarious Spam Subject Lines suggests the subject lines Thunderbolt Autopsy, DongBoat, Hysterectomy Doorknob, and Spiderman Pharmacy for this purpose.
- From "Terrifying Drug Crazes (That Were Made Up by the Media):
That story went so far as to say that people high on this stuff were raging like mad dogs and zombies. Raging Mad Dog Zombie is my favorite energy drink, by the way. Tastes like raspberries and uppercuts.
- From an article on racism
- A Grantland article highlighting weird parts in the Wikipedia articles on National Hockey League teams comes to this after the Tampa Bay Lightning entry:
- Tony Esposito and Several Satellite Dishes would be a good name for a band.
- The blogger sahira820, upon writing the phrase "Harry Dresden and the Sex Vampires" noted this.
Harry Dresden and the Sex Vampires is my Billy and the Werewolves cover band.
- Author John Scalzi keeps a Tumblr where he collects these.
- SCP Foundation: One user comment on SCP-1048:
On a side-note, Teddy Bear Abortion would be a great name for a band.
- In the SF Debris review of the Babylon 5 episode "Rumors, Bargains, and Lies", Chuck makes the following crack about the White Stars:
Chuck: Sheridan's succeeded in convincing the Centauri and Narn to allow White Star Fleet — uh, that's the fleet we saw at the end of last year's "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place", built using Minbari and Vorlon technology, piloted by Rangers, commanded by Sheridan, and sounding like a '70s metal band.
- Given a Brick Joke a few minutes later:
Chuck: So we have the two plots: Sheridan trying to get the Non-Aligned Worlds to accept White Star protection... [Beat] I was wrong, it sounds like a toothpaste.
- Given a Brick Joke a few minutes later:
- Blogger Matt Walsh, in a diatribe against global warming, mentions that "Some Kind of Apocalypse" would be a great name for a band.
- The Twitter feed "We Want Plates", dedicated to cataloguing bizarre food serving options in restaurants occasionally does this, for example:
Macaroni Cauldron and Ketchup Syringe: two obscure indie bands for the price of one.
- What If? (xkcd):
- A variation in the entry "Steak Drop" that could be called A Good Name for a Rock Album. The Alt Text of the third graph reads:
a hypersonic steak breaks Mach 6 while elsewhere a jam band produces an instrumental album titled 'hypersonic steak 6'
- "Tatooine Rainbow" notes that the gap between the bright part of a double rainbow and the dim part is called Alexander's dark band. Cue image of a rock band with that name singing a botched version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".
- A variation in the entry "Steak Drop"
- This Very Wiki's article on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines also jokes about it being a good band name.
- Inverted in this article on shipping which dismisses Bagginshield as "a rubbish '80s metal band".
- Similarly to the Fall Out Boy example, strange sentences or summaries are commonly followed up with the comment that it would be a good name for a Light Novel.
Web Videos
- The Angry Video Game Nerd in his Zelda II review.
The Nerd: "’Cunt Thrust’. That would be a good name for a rock band."
- In Stuart Ashen's "Video Game Tat" video, Ashens holds up a video game case that would reveal an activation code if he hadn't put a fake Lens Flare on top of it, and annotates on video: "'Obscured by Fake Lens Flare' would be a good name for a prog-rock band."
- In his "Stupidly Long Crap Food Special", Ashens misreads the "Git-R-Done" logo on Larry the Cable Guy's hat as "Guitar Dome", and thinks that would be a good rock band name.
- In his "Stupidly Long Crap Food Special
- Parodied by CollegeHumor in their "Honest Music Festival Commercial". The bands listed on the poster include stuff like Joke Name, Swiftly Fell the Apricot, and Gored Moose.
- Aleks from The Creatures says in the gondola on Road to E3 that "Cucumber Gulch Preserve" is a good name for a rock band.
- In Lawrence Friday's Let's Play of Dante's Inferno, Dante is told names of some of the people in Limbo, after having been introduced to Unbaptized Babies, who have, in Lawrence's words, "scythe-hands". He doesn't know if these people are forced to have weaponry for hands, as well. John Murdock asks if they're going to fight "hook-handed Caesar". One chest-cloth cutscene later...
Lawrence Friday: Also, Paul and Storm joke: "Hook-Handed Caesar" is my Hootie & the Blowfish cover band.
- Game Grumps: In the 22nd episode of Sonic Boom, Danny refers to Chili-dogs as "Roasted Landwieners" and then later says "My band has a new name!"
- Bringing up fake band names is actually a Running Gag on the show. Most of them were part of a list of seventy names that Ninja Brian came up when brainstorming name ideas for the band that eventually became Starbomb; Danny describes most of the names on that list as "completely unusable".
- Brian has also brainstormed several potential song names that never made it past that stage; upon hearing them, Erin thinks they sound more like random tweets.
- Indy Neidel, the host of The Great War, has identified two, "The Russian Women's Battalion of Death" (an actual military unit formed in 1917) and "Dutch Royal Cocaine Factory" (an actual enterprise located in Indonesia).
- Jacksfilms: In this episode of Your Grammar Sucks, Jack replies to a comment reading "abortion sucks and should be band":
"Abortion" should be a band!
- In Let's Drown Out, after Yahtzee and Gabriel briefly riffed on the name of the alien in Quake 2, 'The Stroggs', they made a brief joke in that The Stroggs were a punk rock band from west of England. In a later episode they make a similar joke about "The Monado" (a Legendary Weapon from the Xenoblade Chronicles series) sounds like the name of a Latin American drum band.
Gabriel: "Hello we are Monado, a loving tribute to Menudo."
- Markiplier:
- This YouTuber often yells incomprehensible things during his horror videos. Regularly, he claims that the arrangement of words would make great band names and declares that someone may use it, but has to pay him for the usage.
Markiplier: He died?! I barely even got started! This is bull. Murder in a minute. "Murder in a minute" would be a good band name, goddammit, I keep coming up with great band names.
- In a related example, while playing Garry's Mod with Jacksepticeye, Mark creates a pile of ammunition crates that he dubs "Fort Blam-Ass". A disbelieving Jack remarks that it sounds like the name of a gay bar.
- This YouTuber often yells incomprehensible things during his horror videos. Regularly, he claims that the arrangement of words would make great band names and declares that someone may use it, but has to pay him for the usage.
- The Nostalgia Chick: In reviewing True Lies, the Chick thinks the terrorist group being named "Crimson Jihad" is ridiculous.
The Chick: "Crimson Jihad" isn't a terror group! That's the name of your, like, alt-rock band that you had for, like, a month in high school!
- Outside Xbox:
- While discussing Little Friends Cats & Dogs, Luke Westaway throws his in-game puppy Herbert a 1-star sound bone, and then announces that this is his new Twitter bio.note
- When Ellen Rose finds the Drang set in a Dark Souls III livestream, including this weapon, she immediately announces them like it's the start of a concert.
Ellen: Ladies and gentlemen...the Dranghammers!
- PBS Eons' video on crab evolution suggests "Cretaceous Crab Revolution" or "Mesozoic Decapod Revolution" as band names.
- In TableTop, Paul and Storm (mentioned above) were once guests. Joined by host Wil Wheaton, they propelled the whole "[X] is the name of my [this artist] cover band" Running Gag to new heights.
- Officer Gregg makes this joke in several TAOFLEDERMAUS videos, enough to be a Running Gag.
- In TFS at the Table (TeamFourStar's Dungeons & Dragons campaign), Nick "Lanipator" Landis decides to combine a raptor's pheromone gland with an alchemical smoke grenade, declaring it a "Raptor Sex Bomb". His teammate Grant Smith declares "That's the name of my punk band!"; as they high-five, their GM Chris Zito mutters "The shit your players come up with, I swear to God..."
- UNHhhh has a variation. When Trixie or Katya says something that sounds like it could be a good name for a drag queen, they'll usually stop and go "Please welcome to the stage... <Insert drag name here>!"
- Happens every once and a while in What the Fuck Is Wrong with You?, given how often A Rare Sentence comes up. Two good examples would be "Rectal Eels" and "Booty Call Ninjas".
Western Animation
- On the commentary track for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and Glen Murakami talk about the absent producer Alan Burnett and compare him to George Harrison for being the voice of reason, while they are more like Ringo Starr, soon concluding that "Three Ringos and a George" would make for a great band name.
- Brandy & Mr. Whiskers: In "Pedigree, Schedigree", Brandy, while preparing for a beauty pageant, discovers she's actually a mixed breed. As she breaks down and calls herself a "common mutt", Whiskers exclaims that "Mutt" would be a great stage name for her.
- In the early/mid-2000s, Cartoon Network had several commercials where they made announcements for bands based off of clips from their shows (including "Popcorn Fairy", "Hideous, Rotten Teeth", and "Yutz Wagon").
- Metalocalypse is full of this, being about an extremely successful Death Metal band. The band's name itself, Dethklok, is a great name for a band, except some people involved in pseudoscience already had trademarked the phrase Death Clock, which is why they changed the spelling of the band name.
- They also come up with some pretty good names for songs.
Dude, are you puking blood? Hm... "Blood Puke". Great name for a song. Someone write that down... No, wait, we recorded that song already... Great song, though.
- They also come up with some pretty good names for songs.
- Regular Show: In "Mordecai and the Rigbys", Mordecai and Rigby get drunk and decide to order a bulk of customizable shirts for a hypothetical band they could have. They seemingly agree on "Mustache Cash Stash", but it turns out upon delivery that Rigby changed the name to "Mordecai and the Rigbys" on a whim.
- SheZow:
Max: So we like Time Travel Guinea Pigs.
SheZow: That's a good name for a band. - In Steven Universe, Greg's reaction to seeing that someone has stolen the entire ocean and turned it into an enormous space needle, piercing the heavens from the middle of a vast desert?
Greg: Guys... I just had the best idea for an album cover.
- The next episode to feature Lapis Lazuli shows that he actually did make that album cover and is working on the songs for it.
- In Wander Over Yonder, Lord Hater ends up in a prison dimension and says it smells like zombie armpits in there. He immediately pulls out a notebook and writes down "Zombie armpits. Good name for band."
Real Life
- CBS, when covering Donald Trump's presidential campaign, interviewed two experts, one of whom put Trump's success down to his sprinkles of compassion. Toward the end of the interview, both experts were debating what kind of music would be produced by a band named "Sprinkles of Compassion".
- Some left-wing commentators who saw a photo of a sign in front of a Maine gun store agreed that "Vagenda of Manocide" was an excellent name for an all-girl metal band.
- Back when the governor of South Carolina resigned over a sex scandal in 2009, following a line from the governor about his whereabouts when he was really in Argentina meeting his mistress, Keith Olbermann quipped on his news show Countdown, "If there isn't a band called Crossing the Sex Line by this time tomorrow, someone is asleep at the switch."
- There has been discussion on progressive rock sites whether Albion Lowlander would make a good name for a prog-folk band.note
- In response to plans for Student Loan relief, US Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) complained on Fox News that the money was funding "Karen's daughter's degree in lesbian dance theory", to which some people had this response.
