Why Blink Was Forced To Change Their Name to Blink-182 After Releasing Their 1995 Debut Album

By the late 1980s, Dinosaur had already released three albums—Dinosaur (1985), You’re Living All Over Me (1987), and Bug (1988)—before receiving a cease and desist from the supergroup Dinosaurs—featuring Peter Albin of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service’s John Cipollina, The Grateful Dead‘s Robert Hunter, and Spencer Dryden of Jefferson Airplane. At first, the “Jr.” was never meant to be part of the band’s name, but they were forced to add the suffix by the fourth album, Green Mind, in 1991.

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Kurt Cobain first started recording demos as Fecal Matter before his old schoolmate, bassist Krist Novoselic, joined him. The duo ran through a few drummers before Dave Grohl, along with band names—Bliss, Ted Ed Fred, Pen Cap Chew, and Skid Row—before landing on Nirvana in 1988.

To avoid any legal trouble with the record label Verve Records, the band Verve added “The” to their name before releasing their B-sides album, No Come Down, in 1994.

First called Xero when they formed in 1996, they switched to Hybrid Theory, which was also the title of their 2000 debut. Eventually, the band decided to change their name to Linkin Park to avoid any legalities with the British electronic duo Hybrid.

Throughout history, bands have shifted from one moniker to another by force or musical evolution. And Blink-182 were no strangers to the name change early on.

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Blink + “182”

Shortly after forming in 1992, guitarist Tom DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus, and drummer Scott Raynor tested out several monikers, including Duck Tape and Figure 8, before landing on Blink.

A year after releasing their first recording together, Buddha, in 1994, followed by their debut studio album, Cheshire Cat, in 1995, the trio was forced to stop calling themselves Blink since there was already an Irish pop-rock band using that moniker. To switch it up, they decided to tack on a random number to “Blink,” which was “182.”

There was really no reason behind adding the number 182. Hoppus revealed that the band landed on the “182” after a call with their record label, which gave them an ultimatum after they received a cease and desist from an Irish pop band named Blink, which pulled their name from the 1990 Cocteau Twins song, “Iceblink Luck.”

“It finally got to the point where they said if you don’t choose a name for this band, we’re going to choose one for you,” said Hoppus during a 2010 interview with comedian Amy Schumer. “We were like, ‘Alright, Blink-182.’” We just made up the 182, and ever since then, we’ve made up different stories about what 182 means. It was my ideal weight. It was the ship number my grandfather worked on in World War II. It was the number of times Al Pacino said ‘f*ck’ in ‘Scarface.’”

Photo: Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images