In the 1990s, you could start virtually any type of bandâgrunge, industrial, trip-hop, Britpop, punk, ska, swing, rap-metalâand stand a chance of getting played on the radio. With that freedom came the ability to name your band practically any bizarre thing that popped into your head. There were no wrong answers. Read on to learn the stories behind 20 famous â90s bands with weird names weâve all come to love.

1. Toad the Wet Sprocket

Best known for the jangly 1992 hit âAll I Want,â Toad the Wet Sprocket got their name from a Monty Python sketch called âRock Notes.â Python member Eric Idle was apparently trying to think of the dumbest name possible.

2. Pearl Jam

Eddie Vedder and company were originally known as Mookie Blaylock, a reference to the NBA point guard who played with the Nets, Hawks, and Warriors. After they got famous as Pearl Jam, Vedder told journalists their name referred to his great-grandmother Pearl and the hallucinogenic jam she liked to makeâbut thatâs bogus. Bassist Jeff Ament suggested the name Pearl, and soon after, the group attended a Neil Young show filled with impressive jams.

3. Weezer

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo named his band for a childhood nickname given to him by his father. Cuomoâs dad got the unusual nickname from a character on The Little Rascals. âI said, âWhy him?ââ Cuomo explained in 2022 on Conan OâBrienâs podcast. âAnd he said, âHeâs the cool one.ââ

4. Stone Temple Pilots

Fans of Stone Temple Pilots often refer to the band as STPâand thatâs fitting, since the group got their name from the motor oil brand STP. Lead singer Scott Weiland dug the logo, so they worked backwards and came up with a backronym to fit those letters.

5. Radiohead

This oneâs pretty simple: The coolest, brainiest band of the â90s took their name from âRadio Head,â a 1986 song by the coolest, brainiest band of the â80s, Talking Heads.

6. Nirvana

After cycling through a bunch of scuzzy names like Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew, and Ted Ed Fred, Kurt Cobain and his crew settled on the kinder, gentler Nirvana, the Buddhist term for a state of peace and well-being devoid of suffering and desire. âI wanted a name that was kind of beautiful or nice and pretty instead of a mean, raunchy punk name like the Angry Samoans,â Cobain once said.

7. Goo Goo Dolls

According to legend, the group now known as Goo Goo Dolls changed their name because a club in Connecticut refused to put their original name, The Sex Maggots, on its marquee. But is that really true? âThatâs how the folklore goes,â bassist Robby Takac told Forbes. â[Goo Goo Dolls] doesnât really mean anything ⦠The first name was bad, so we moved on to another bad name, got 15,000 fans, and were afraid to change it.â Lead singer John Rzeznik has admitted itâs âkind of a stupid name.â

8. Nine Inch Nails

When trying to come up with a name for his industrial-leaning synth-pop project, Trent Reznor had a rough time. In 1994, he told Axcess magazine that he tried about 200 names that sounded cool at first but later revealed themselves to be anything buy. âNine Inch Nails lasted the two-week test, looked great in print, and could be abbreviated easily,â he said. âIt really doesn’t have any literal meaning. It seemed kind of frightening.â

9. Limp Bizkit

If you think thereâs a deep meaningâor any meaning at allâbehind the name Limp Bizkit, youâve probably never listened to Limp Bizkit. âThe name is there to turn peopleâs heads away,â lead singer Fred Durst said in a 2000 book about the group. âA lot of people pick up the disc and go, âLimp Bizkit. Oh, they must suck.â Those are the people that we donât even want listening to our music.â

10. Oasis

Back when this bandâs lineup only featured one Gallagher brother, Liam, they were known as Rain. After they decided to change the name, Liam spotted a cool concert poster on his brother Noelâs wall. The band was Inspiral Carpets, whom Noel roadied for, and the venue was the Oasis Leisure Centre in Swindon, England.

11. Matchbox Twenty

While waiting tables in Florida prior to getting famous, Matchbox Twenty drummer Paul Doucette spotted a customer with an unusual softball shirt. The number 20 was on the back, and the front had a load of patches, one of which read âMatchbox.â Douchette put the two together, and while frontman Rob Thomas hated the name, they wound up keeping it.

12. No Doubt

Formed all the way back in 1986, nearly a decade before they blew up, No Doubt was initially a straight-up ska band with a super-dynamic lead singer. No, not Gwen Stefaniâhis name was John Spence. (Stefani was a secondary vocalist.) Spence was fond of the phrase no doubt, which is how the group got its name. Sadly, Spence died by suicide in December 1987 at the age of 18.

13. Foo Fighters

Around the time he recorded Foo Fightersâ self-titled 1995 debut album, playing all of the instruments himself, Dave Grohl was reading a lot of books about UFOs. He needed a name for this new project that would imply an actual bandânot just himâso he chose Foo Fighters, a World War II-era term used by military pilots to describe unidentified flying objects.

14. Green Day

This oneâs all about weed. A âgreen dayâ is a day spent doing nothing more than getting stoned. âWe were trying to be the Cheech & Chong of punk rock for a while,â frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told Bill Maher.

15. Janeâs Addiction

Jane is a real person: Jane Bainter, a onetime Hollywood housemate of Janeâs Addiction frontman Perry Farrell. She really did have an addictionâto heroinâand her misadventures with a drug-dealing boyfriend inspired the 1988 Janeâs Addiction classic âJane Says.â

16. Bush

Chalk this one up to local pride. Bush leader Gavin Rossdale and his compatriots named their band after Shepherdâs Bush, a suburb of West London.Â

17. Smash Mouth

Famed NFL coach Mike Ditka used the phrase smash mouth to describe his preferred brand of take-no-prisoners football. âWe liked the way he said it,â said Smash Mouth via X (formerly Twitter) in a 2016 tweet about the origin of their name.

18. Sugar Ray

These SoCal purveyors of feel-good pop-rock were originally a much heavier band known as Shrinky Dinx. Following threats of legal action from Milton Bradley, who were then licensing the rights to the plastic-melting toy Shrinky Dinks, they changed their name to Sugar Ray, after â80s boxer Sugar Ray Leonard. âWe chose it because it was a piece of Americana, like Ford cars and 7-Up,â frontman Mark McGrath told SFGate in 1997. âYou have to look at the name as a representation of America as a wholeâthe good, positive part of America.â

19. Hootie & the Blowfish

For the millionth time, Darius Rucker is not âHootie.â And the other dudes in his band are not âthe Blowfish.â The band name actually refers to two friends Rucker had while attending the University of South Carolina. One wore big glasses and looked like an owl; the other had puffy cheeks. The two once walked into a party, and Rucker called out, âItâs Hootie and the Blowfish!â The rest is history.

20. Garbage

The seemingly self-deprecating name of this electro-tinged alt-rock outfit was a result of their creative struggles early on. âWithout coming up with anything cool ⦠and when you least expect it, it all falls into place ⦠I hope all this âgarbageâ will become something beautiful,â drummer Butch Vig wrote in a studio journal.