Tips For Picking An Artiste Name?

[john]

Hi gang

 

I am planning to write a blog post or article about picking your artiste name. I have my ideas, and what I know from a variety of research, but .I thought it a good idea to ask you, our members, what you think.

 

As a prompt:

 

Do you have recommendations for generating potential names? Tools? Film or book titles? Headlines? Lines from poems? Words in a hat? What has worked for you?

 

How do you qualify potential titles? What tests do they need to pass? What would cause an instant fail?

 

What makes a good name?

 

What makes a name memorable?

 

Are there any other dos and don'ts?

 

Cheers

 

John

[Peggy]

Hi John,

Looking forward to your blog post on this.

 

For me, it seems like it's a very difficult thing to do. First, I do my free think.. produced a few good ones but further research eliminates them.

 

I have tried all kinds of methods and generator tools for fun. Wasn't very fun and offered a lot of "yucks".  

 

Back to free thinking.

 

-Can't have been used the same way,

-words can't bring perceived "baggage",

- Can't be too heady,  cliche, dorky

- Can't be too feminine or masculine

- Can't sound old timely

- needs visual appeal 

- catchy, easy to read, spell/write, and pronounce

- can't use my name. It is terrible for artist/band name 

 

Peggy

[Snowman]

The art of band names is close to dead. One of my favorite bands, I can never remember “Caravan Palace”. No one has a memorable name anymore. Rilo Kiley, what the hell. Excellent band, terrible name.

IMO: Given how people do internet searches, you’d probably want a name that many people would search without knowing it’s a band. A really bad example: “Gone with the Wind”. They might be looking for the movie. But, your name would pop up. A good example, my band name “Frances Farmer My Hero”. I’ve sold quite a few CASSETTES by people searching for this controversial actress. I also received my best gig ever via the band name. Of course if your name is Gone with the Wind you better play country music.

A name should give the listener a glimpse into the style/genre they’re going to hear. Imagine if 50 Cent played easy listening.

My first band’s name is unmentionable. It was so awful a critic we invited sent us a letter refusing to see us, and told us to grow up. I actually took the name from a Malcolm Mclaren/Vivian Westwood t-shirt. We were on our way to meet some girls and we needed a band name. I mentioned it, and my guitarist was like “WTF”? But, we couldn’t come up with anything else. The girls had left already, but the name stuck. It was a terrible name.

A name that’s pretty awful for internet searches is Pink. Led Zeppelin easy, Pink really hard.

[Peggy]

6 hours ago, Snowman said:

Given how people do internet searches, you’d probably want a name that many people would search without knowing it’s a band.

Cool how it works in different ways.

I kinda accidently goofed in doing 

something similar. A name/link could get lost in the results. I was new. Thought I had done enough research. 

Didn't check searches and results until too late. Eek...seemed lost, many pages down..a good lesson.  Probably would still go with the name

 Wasn't even the same, never even came to mind the other one. 

Peggy

[Richard Tracey]

I've gone along the route of picking titles from song lyrics, a phrase or wording that I think sounds really good. A lot of bands have done something similar, that and the taking s name from a book.

[john]

As an anecdote don't pick names that ultimately lead to disappointment. For example, you might think calling your band "Free Beer" would ensure packed venues publicising "Free beer tonight"... but you can only imaging how annoyed the audience would be when they found out lol

[MonoStone]

Aside from not picking a name that sounds like someone else, it's hard to think of any 'don'ts' ....

 

I mean The Beatles is such a crappy sounding name... if you can imagine it without the Beatles being the Beatles... really!!! The music and the performers make the name work... any name...pretty much.

 

I suppose some genres demand a certain sound to a name.... like heavy METAL bands... but personally I find that laughable.

Edited October 9, 2017 by MonoStone