Ten Easy Ways to Name Your Metal Band

Long hair: check. Black clothes: check. Social outcast at school: check. Real or imaginary talent for lyric-writing and song-composing: check. A wish to fuckin' rock all the time: checkitty check check. Band name: ......huh-oh. But worry not, newborns of the headbanging world. Seion is here to teach you ten easy ways to name your heavy metal band and make it sound just like the pros. As names go, of course... because as music goes, in sounding like the pros, you're on your own.

#10 - Latinization
Metal fans love Latin, especially if they belong to two distinct sub schools. On the one hand you have the Goths, who wear hundred-pound golden crosses around their necks in almost the same way the hip-hop people do, and like white women in long flowing dresses and their effeminate vampire boyfriends. They love Latin because that's the favored idiom used by the Christian church, which would be from where they derive a good deal of their inspiration (don't forget the ultimate Gothic book is Dracula - a lot of Christian church symbolism there). On the other hand, you have the Antichrist folk, who think it's still a shocker that people worship or pretend to worship His Infernal Majesty (most commonly the latter), and that by turning onto the other side of the spectrum they are denying every single aspect of their church-going childhood. These guys haven't realized yet that the opposite of worshiping and respecting is plainly ignoring, so most of them errs by excess. They like Latin too, since Latin is one of the main idioms if not the main idiom used by the Catholic church: the Anti-Christian cult being one that centers on parodying the Christian one in pretty much the same way that irritating younger brother parodies everything you say and do, they will use Latin in their band names often as well. If your band belongs to any of these, well kudos to you, go buy a Latin dictionary so you can also translate song lyrics and names, and name your first three albums while you're at it.

As for every non-Goth non-Demonic band that wears a Latinized name, you must remember in which instance other than the Catholic church is Latin used. Go listen to a little bit of classical music and you have a winner: Latin is, up to a period of time, the one idiom used in the opera, even if by then the Latin language was dead and buried a long time ago. A latinized name reminds you of requiems, orchestral melodies, epic stories and The Lord of the Rings. If that's what you're going for, well kudos to you too. You probably don't need a Latin dictionary as much as the rest of the folks, probably lurking the Internet for a Latin translator will do. Or you can just pick a Latin expression you know from elsewhere and use that. Remember, most people don't give a shit and aren't forced to learn the bloody language in the way I did, so nobody will probably check out what it means. You could name your band Ad Nauseam and it would still sound good.

#09 - Get "Death" in it
There is a word that will lend any skimpy little band a little street cred, as metal goes. Metal is an aggressive form of music, that is just one of the reasons why it's called metal. Over the years, a series of words in band names and lyrics have become the tools of the trade as naming goes, and if you're about to enter the business, someone should give you a briefing on these. The main one is what we're aiming for here: "Death".

We all know Death is the goal we mean to achieve through conflict, the death of your opponent. Be it physical (refer to Power Metal) or emotional (in come the Goths again, closely followed by the Nu Metal crew) or intellectual (because we live in the 21st century and humiliation is often likened to death, yet still widely accepted). The only thing we need to know now, is when and where to use it, according to where you're going with it. You could just get it everywhere, from band name to tour name, but that would just sound cheap. You'd be just like a poser. Or Dethklok from Metalocalypse. And the saturated use of the word "Death" is not brutal.

So if you're into Death Metal *nudge nudge*, you're in the clear. Use this word as if it was peanuts: have it anywhere you want, whenever you want, for whatever you want (if this confuses you, refer to this article). You are free, revel in it. Plus, from the way you're going to sing it, nobody will even realize how often you say it unless they bother to read the lyrics - and it they do, they're real hardcore fans and won't mind. If you're going for the Goth style, use it moderately and always make it sound like just another phase of the dating process. If Power Metal is your thing, Death means either the complete victory over thine enemies or your own glorious perishing, so you can get it on the lyrics, but save something better for the band name. Something with a fantasy reference, the geek market is wide and almost unexplored.

Some people like to be careful. They want the sound but not the morbidness. That's where things like "Deth" and "Dett" come from - same shit, different asshole. For more usages of the word "Death" (or its two ugly sisters) scroll down to the next pointers.

#08 - Internationalizing
In order for your band to be a success internationally, people need to know its name. To get people to know your name, it usually needs to be something they can pronounce. (the Finnish do not abide by this rule. If you're from Finland, call the band whatever you want in Finnish, fans will come to learn the name, for the Finnish are born with epic coming out of their ears. And if you're singing Folk Metal, having a nearly unpronounceable name is mandatory). Most bands find a name in English, since English is that easy-to-learn language nearly everybody knows, and the language in which the vast majority of songs of any kind are sung. If Numa Numa came with English lyrics, we'd have never seen the end of it.

Of course, you may want to be like the Finnish and give your band a very national name, in hopes the exotic sound will entice people to check it out. Or you may not even be close to Finland and give your band a Finnish name to borrow some of their awesomeness. This is called "internationalizing". By internationalizing, you're going farther than just plain English: you're finding a name on the other side of the fuckin' globe if needed to capitalize on the "exotic" and "uncommon" factors. Let me give you an example: have you ever heard of a band called Gaijin Sentai? Yeah? No? Well... they're Brazilian. What do they sing? Anime and old sentai show songs, of course, what else... spooky shit.

It is a possibility: if you're from Spain, go find a name in Iran. You're from the US? Try Germany. French? Go check some American Indian terms. If you're from Finland, once again, you're in the clear. Of course this can backfire in some places: what do you figure the Japanese think of a Brazilian band called Gaijin Sentai? Would you like an Italian band to call themselves Gigante Adamastor?

#07 - Two become one
One-word band names are very popular. They're easy to remember and easy to say when you're drunk off your ass (unless of course you name your band Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but then again, if you did, your road manager's reaction of "You're shitting me." would probably give you a clear hint that it's a bad idea). Many legendary bands have one-word names: Razor, Metallica, Stratovarius, you name it. So a one-word name it is... but which? After all, the ultimate metal name is taken (read above, you'll get there...) and most of the cool words are taken as well... what ever are we going to do? Before you go buy a dictionary and seek the leanest meanest word you can find, check below.

Get two words and juxtapose them to form one.

That's right. Get two words and juxtapose them to form one. It's a fad nowadays. You can have two related words, or unrelated words too - it doesn't matter, but they usually are related. Why call your band Dark Side if you can call it Darkside for added effect? What you get is a word that has an effect (Dark) and one that hasn't (Side) made into one whole, meaningful (more or less) word of win. And everyone knows single word band names look better on the album and magazine covers. Plus, with that particular example, you're avoiding a huge lawsuit by Lucasfilms.

#06 - Typos
Normal names usually aren't very "cool". Unusual names, with plenty of Ks, Ys, Zs and double letters are cooler. And you must also keep in mind that some already cool names can be further "cooled" (is this even right, grammatically?) through creative writing. And by creative writing I mean doing what hundreds of teenagers texting each other out there have already learned: Cs can be easily replaced with Ks and who needs an S when you can easily shove an X into any sibilating syllable? A practical example would be the band Kreator - they wouldn't surely have as much success if they were just plain Creator...

The same method can be used if you are looking to use an already well-known name yet want to do your own thing, much in the same way as "Death"'s retarded and ugly sister "Dett". Let's pick up a name which inspires fear in the hearts of those who actually give two shits about checking out what it refers to, like Ctulhu. We all know what Ctulhu is (and if you don't, you're a lucky one. But since you're in front of a computer terminal, you're probably opening a browser window to go check it out anyway, so...) and those who took the time to read H.P. Lovecraft instead of just watching movie or game adaptations, cool as they may be, know that it is a name that inspires fear and respect. That's what you want for your band, but you don't want all the problems that come from borrowing in the name of a mythical sea demon-god octopus thingie. So keep the sonority and just call yourself Ktulu. Of course, fans are dumb but not that dumb: they'll realize where you borrowed it from. But it's still not the same, so you can say it as many times as you want without fishmen knocking at your door and Dagon raping your girlfriend.

Overall, what you also want to do is avoid round letters as much as possible. If you want to be fuckin' hard, and you know you do, you must have an aggressive-sounding name as well as an aggressive-looking one. A lot has been done with fonts, but it helps if you can write the name in straights lines only - hence the resort to Ks, Ys and Zs. Because everyone would date Kathy since she's crazy and wild but few would look at Cathy since she's a sweet and innocent farmgirl.

#05 - Honorifics
So you've just started a band and you need to get your name out there. You want to be big, so, much like a prey defending itself from a predator, you're going to make yourself bigger than you actually are. One way to do this is to give yourself a honorific. After all, the Dukes of Hazzard wouldn't be much if they were the Hazzard Family instead.

Find yourself a honorific you like. You can pick it up from royalty (Duke works well, as does King and Lord. Short stuff. Hell, Queen worked wonders!) or profession (Doctor, or if you want to consider the previous pointer, Doktor, works well) and add it to yout band name. You can even make funny puns using up meaning and sonority but not actual words, in the same way as Dr Acula did (oh brother... it's a pun, alright, a groan-worthy pun). Honorifics work because human beings have been wired from birth to consider anyone who can legally write a couple more words before or after their name one awesome guy. Some of us grow to understand those who can legally write a few more words before or after their names are as much likely to be douchebags as the next man, but not all of us. Plus, imagine all the awesome shit the fans can tell you. Having your groupies come in "for consultation" saying they need "an injection" is one of those things most of us have only seen in 70's porn flicks, but through this method it can be your everyday life! Again, if you like bad puns and double entendre so old someone should pull the plug on it, you're in business.

Before you do this, however, you must gather your band and ask them if any of them will fling a chair at the reporters when one asks "Are you really a certified physician?" during your first tour. Of course, if you all got master's degrees in something, you can very smugly say that why yes you are...

#04 - Completely unrelated
My kingdom for anyone who finds any relation between the words "cunt" and "worm" (for further knowledge, refer to #09), which incidentally is the name of a death metal band. Sometimes you get band names composed of non-juxtaposed words, usually two, which have little to no relation to each other. I'm saying it's a usual process, I didn't say it was a smart process. The name of your band says a lot about what you stand for, so if you name your band, let's say, Goat Semen (yes, it is a real band. Check their biography: they claim to play something called Total Trendkiller Southamerican Terrorist Death Black Destruction. I don't even need to comment, it's already poking fun at itself)... that likely says a lot about what you stand for.

If you're picking two completely unrelated words, you likely want to sound a little insane. It is a common method used by bands in those "extreme" styles, like Grindcore. You must understand, of course, that from the moment you do this, in 90% of the cases, you're tossing your intelligence out the window. The same will likely happen when naming albums and tours, when writing lyrics, when dressing for gigs and getting your makeup on, when shouting unintelligible shit to the fans and, one day, when you tell yout grandchildren you were so bad your name didn't even made fuckin' sense. I won't lie, I think this is the cheapest way to name your band, and the one that produces some of the worst bloody results in the history of music.

See, some of these names sound like they make sense. Sometimes, the two words that compose them are related somehow. Take Cradle of Filth, or Napalm Death. On the first, you get a sentence you can read and interpret - the words make sense together. On the second, one is a consequence of the other: napalm falls, everyone dies. It's not completely apeshit... but they are unrelated words meant to evoke a given image in your mind, one that doesn't make much sense as the band is concerned most of the times - alternatly, meant to just sound badass. When researching for this article I stumbled upon a band called Cattle Decapitation. Their first album is called Humanure (yet another groan-worthy pun...). Why in the name of crow would anyone want to name their band Cattle Decapitation? It's not overly easy to say... the image it evokes doesn't say much either... it doesn't sound particularly badass. What were they thinking?

Still, it is a vallid method. If you want to try it, do the following: get a dictionary and pick two pages at random. Rip them off the book and hang them on the walls. Then gather a few friends, get drunk or high or both, and in between throwing up and blubbering about how nobody understands you, toss two darts at the hanging dictionary pages. If nobody loses an eye, take the two words the darts hit and you have your band name. If you want it faster, use this.

#03 - Getting your name out there
Some bands are all about a group of musical virtuosos gathering in a quest for the awesome. Some bands are all about this one guy. It's usually the frontman, but not always. I'll give you an example outside of metal, since it's the first that occurs to me out of the blue: Dave Matthews Band. You know Dave Matthews is in there, he is the band founder in fact. Who else is in it? Unless you're a fan, you have absolutely no idea.

There's no problem if you are a one-man band. It would make no sense, after all, for Alice Cooper to call himself anything else. It's just the one guy, it's his name out there. But if there's three of you, how fair is it to call your band your own name? What a selfish bastard you are. The musical world is a dog-eat-dog one, (much like every other world out there, in fact) and if you hope to make it, maybe you'll have to ditch your less attractive / less talented / less likely to make it band. If you hope to build up a solo career fast, however, it'd be useful if people were already familiar with your name. So why not use your band as a leaping platform for yourself? It's legitimate. If you can convince the other guys to call your name to the band, it's pretty much done: you're the genius, and they're only there because you don't have time to do everything.

On the other hand, you're at the risk of not being all that big. At least not as big on your own as the band. Tarja Turunen was Nightwish' pearl for years, but when she left, the band kept playing with success and few have heard from her since. It leads me to believe that if they were called simply Tarja, upon separation, the rest of the folks would go on to form a new band, and the fans would go after them all the same since Tarja's success cannot, apparently, overshadow all the other band members. Of course, if you want to take the chance of your band kicking you out before you manage to make yourself well-known enough, or the chance of you not being as much a genius as you think you are, by all means...

#02 - Calling all geeks
Let's face it: a lot of metal sub schools were made by geeks for geeks. That's right: we are way more than you think. Several of us gather to play D&D and eat junk food just next door to you and you have no idea, since the only time plenty of us are seen together is when George Lucas cooks up yet another Star Wars prequel or any sort of convention is happening. Not all of us are overweight, have braces and wear glasses. Not all of us scored great grades at school. The guy sitting next to you on the subway right now, who looks like a regular dude in a suit heading off to work, is actually listening to The Lord of the Rings soundtrack on his mp3. That girl you fancy at the office has the biggest collection of Enterprise models known to mankind and is fluent in Klingon. That guy at the bar never said a word about Dr. Who and he knows the title to every single episode, as well as the first airing date and a shitload of useless trivia. Your girlfriend may be entangled in a forum discussion over whose Star Wars character would make a better hubby as you read this and you have absolutely no idea.

Take a while to panic, calm down, digest that and come back. Are you back? Okay. Geeks are one of the ultimate outcast groups, seeing as even amongst themselves there are outcasts. They are also very frustrated and angry at times, and have next to no outlets. Finally, they like to hear songs about shit they know, and nobody else does. If you can understand every single reference in Nightwish' Wishmaster, you know what I mean.

If you're a geek already, you know what to do. This has proved without a shade of a doubt, that if it's done, the fans will listen. Don't feel bad that you're basically borrowing from another fandom's popularity, after all, you're just giving the people what they want, and that's a business as fair as any. Pick up a reference and use it as a band name. I am still waiting to see a band call themselves such awesome names as Treepi-O, Gothmog Lord of the Darkness. Or who knows, Captain's Log. If nobody else picks it up, fine and dandy. If they do, they'll listen, no matter how shitty the music is.

#01 - Grossing it out
In some metal sub schools, the grosser the better. Remember that kid you went to school with? The one who liked the really gross stuff, and thought that pus was the greatest thing ever created under the Sun? The one who knew ogrish dot com end to end and usually browsed it while he ate his lunch for added effect? Every school had one, and there's a reason why nobody remembers who he was at this point: he either changed his ways, or you ditched him. I'm as cool talking about pus as the next man, but a guy that gets vomit-inducing images on your head every time he opens his mouth can get a bit tiresome. Especially if at some point in his life, he started wearing t-shirts to match (read, any album cover of Cannibal Corpse) and you're on your way to tell your newfound love he is your best friend. You get a few of these together and give them some instruments and voilá: we have a band in need of a name. Crow only knows what will happen.

If this is your situation... well, why do you need my aid? You have a talent, my boy. One nobody wants you to use, but a talent nonetheless. Just think of the most disgusting thing you can, and you have a name. Jewels of the genre are band names such as Prostitute Decapitation, Vomitory, Dying Fetus and the aforementioned Goat Semen, if you want to assume it was done on purpose.