Aerosmith — Joey Kramer wrote this word all over his notebooks in high school. It is also thought that Aerosmith were inspired by the book Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis.[10

Bee Gees — not a contraction of "Brothers Gibb", which is a popular assumption, but rather the initials of two men who helped the group in their early career, Bill Goode and disc jockey Bill Gates.

Coldplay - Chris, Jonny, Wil & Guy were called "Starfish" originally and their friends were called "Coldplay". When they didn't want the name anymore, "Starfish" asked if they could use it instead. The original Coldplay took the name from a book of collected poems.

The Doors - From William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which read, "If the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite."

Hootie and The Blowfish - From the nicknames of two friends of singer/guitarist Darius Rucker one of them had owl-like eyes so he called him "Hootie", the other friend had puffy "Blowfish" cheeks.

Jefferson Airplane — According to Jorma Kaukonen the name was coined by a friend as a satire of blues pseudonyms such as "Blind Lemon" Jefferson.

Led Zeppelin - Jimmy Page was drinking with The Who's Drummer Keith Moon and Bassist John Entwhistle, who were complaining about their band mates Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend. They joked about the two of them starting a band with Jimmy, and Keith Moon said "Yeah, that will go over like a lead zeppelin". When Jimmy formed his own band, he remembered this and thought "Lead Zeppelin" would be good, both from that conversation and the heavy/light contradiction similar to the band named Iron Butterfly. They decided to drop the "a" so Americans wouldn't mispronounce it.

Marillion — The band was originally called "Silmarillion." The name was taken from the title of a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. The name was eventually shortened to avoid possible legal problems.

Pink Floyd - Playing under multiple names, including "Tea Set", when the band found themselves on the same bill as another band with the same name, Syd Barrett came up with the alternative name The Pink Floyd Sound, after two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.[116][117] For a time after this they oscillated between The Tea Set and The Pink Floyd Sound, with the latter name eventually winning out. The Sound was dropped fairly quickly, but the definite article was still used regularly until 1970. The group's UK releases during the Syd Barrett era credited them as The Pink Floyd as did their first two U.S. singles. 1969's More and Ummagumma albums credit the band as Pink Floyd, produced by The Pink Floyd, while 1970's Atom Heart Mother credits the band as The Pink Floyd, produced by Pink Floyd. David Gilmour is known to have referred to the group as The Pink Floyd as late as 1984.

Radiohead - originally known as "On a Friday", the band was given two weeks after signing to Parlophone to change their name. The band renamed themselves after the 1986 Talking Heads song "Radio Head" on the album True Stories, claiming it as the "least annoying song" from the album.

The Rolling Stones - from the Muddy Waters song, "Rollin' Stone"