Band name origins

[snopes]

Comment: I heard that the reason for the '70's band "The Commodores" name
is because they couldn't decide on a name, so they decided to pick the
first word they found when they opened the dictionary to a random page.

Unfortunately, the word they found when they tried this was "commode," so
they went a little further down the page, and found "commodore," and the
rest is history.

[Steve]

Originally called the Jays, they chose their present name when King flipped open a dictionary and ran his finger down the page. "We lucked out," he laughs. "We almost became 'The Commodes.' "

http://www.people.com/people/archive...070234,00.html

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Maybe, but it also sounds like a fun story to tell regardless of whether it is true. There are a lot of stories that people pick up from others and pass around as if they happened to them (as described in Seinfeld). I recall seeing on the UL pages of this site several occasions where people told stories as if they had happened to them which are very unlikely to have happened to all of the people claiming the story.

[Dondi]

Similiar story recounts another band trying to come up with a name until Jerry Garcia pickup a dictionary and found the entry 'grateful dead' and the rest is history.


Jethro Tull was so named during the band's struggling years when they were trying to land gigs. They kept changing their name so they can go back to venues that they were let go with a previous band name (in hopes the managers would think they were a different band), until finally they found lasting success and just so happened that the flavor of the moment was Jethro Tull.