It's easy to see what inspired The Beatles' choice of name: 'beat' in its musical sense, the group's association with the Beat Generation, plus a punning reference to Buddy Holly's backing group, The Crickets. Short, snappy and meaningful, and definitely catchier than previous names they had tried - The Quarrymen, The Moondogs, The Moonshiners. Others are less obvious.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Abba

Let's start at the mundane end of the scale with Emerson, Lake and Palmer who decided to stick with their real names and sound more like a firm of small-town solicitors than one of the most acclaimed rock groups of the 1970s.

Another group from that era who used their own names was Abba, an acronym derived from the initial letters of Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid.

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