When you’re a band starting out, balancing dreams of success with the difficulty of writing and performing songs, all you want is inspiration to strike and present you with a memorable, catchy band name. But, of course, the task is always harder.
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It can take weeks or months to land on the right moniker. Pearl Jam. The Beatles. The Velvet Underground. Yes, those are all odd but acceptable. But what happens when you prize brevity?
These six bands below all sought some of the shortest, most concise band names ever.
1. U2
The band name for these Irish-born rockers is so short and compact that the group’s frontman Bono has even bemoaned it. “I really don’t like the name,” Bono said. “But I was late into some kind of dyslexia. I didn’t realize that The Beatles was a bad pun either.” Nevertheless, the name U2 has stuck and it’s one of the most famous in the world. In interviews, Bono has also explained that a friend curated a list of names for them at the group’s outset, and they landed on U2 because they disliked it the least. Bono added that the name gave off “futuristic” images of “the spy plane” and “the U-boat.”
[RELATED: The Mischievous Meaning Behind The Rolling Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow”]
2. !!!
This California-born rock group, fronted by Nic Offer, is known as !!!, Chk or Chk Chk Chk. The band’s name was originally inspired by the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, in which a certain sound was written out as an “!”, however, the group has also gone by the audible sound from the movie written out as an onomatopoeia. Hence, “Chk Chk Chk.” It’s confusing but also endearing. And it’s helped keep the Sacramento-formed band successful and in people’s minds, to be sure.
3. N.W.A.
This moniker is an abbreviation but because the first word of that three-letter title is not a word we can write and since the group was, is, and will forever be known as N.W.A., we will highlight it here. This group, founded in Los Angeles, helped kickstart the “gangsta rap” subgenre and brought to prominence rap figures like Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy-E. The group also boasts one of the greatest musical biopics out there, Straight Outta Compton. N.W.A. is iconic.
4. R.E.M.
Another abbreviation, this Georigia-born band will forever be known by its three-letter-moniker, R.E.M. Nevertheless, those letters do stand for the scientific term “rapid eye movement,” which occurs when human beings are in deep sleep and dreaming. However, as the legend goes, when William Dement, the sleep researcher who coined the term asked the band if they named it after the sleep state, they said no.
5. Air
This French duo from Versailles is known for its short, three-letter name and for songs like “Sexy Boy,” “Playground Love” and other songs from The Virgin Suicides soundtrack. Take a deep breath, because this group, which was founded in 1995 and is comprised of members Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, might be your new favorites.
6. [The Symbol]
Originally, the Minnesota-born artist Prince Rogers Nelson went with the one-word title, Prince. The Purple One known for songs like “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy” decided to change things up from that six-letter moniker to the unpronounceable symbol, which is displayed in the YouTube clip below. It was known as the “Love Symbol” and as a result, the guitar genius was also often known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince.
Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
