McCartney Times

While there are a lot of bands who are straightforward about the origin of their names, The Beatles was not one of them. Despite the fact that The Beatles was a legendary group and their name is known all around the world, even to this day, not many people have any idea why they are called “The Beatles.”

If you’re curious about how The Beatles got their famous name, read on below to learn more about this interesting tidbit.

While there are a lot of bands who are straightforward about the origin of their names, The Beatles was not one of them. Despite the fact that The Beatles was a legendary group and their name is known all around the world, even to this day, not many people have any idea why they are called “The Beatles.”

If you’re curious about how The Beatles got their famous name, read on below to learn more about this interesting tidbit.

The Beatles started with The Quarrymen

Before The Beatles was even a thing, there was a group known as The Quarrymen. This band was started in the 1950s by John Lennon and a few schoolmates from Quarry Bank High School.

Paul McCartney joined the group in 1957 after seeing them play live. George Harrison also joined a year later.

By 1960, Lennon began studying at the Liverpool College of Art and his former schoolmates left the band. Thus, “The Quarrymen” no longer felt like a fitting name since the group was not made up of Quarry Bank students anymore. They decided to come up with a new name.

A widely accepted theory came from Lennon’s first wife, Cynthia. She alleged that the band had a drunken “brainstorming session,” where they wanted to get a bug-related name that was inspired by Buddy Holly’s band: The Crickets. Then-member Stuart Sutcliffe eventually thought of the name “The Beatles.”

However, there is also another theory floating around. This one came from The Beatles’ publicist, Derek Taylor. According to his memoir, Taylor said that “The Beatles” came from the 1953 movie The Wild One, in which Marlon Brando’s character referred to his leather-jacket-donning gang as “young beetles.” This theory is not completely sound, though, as The Wild One was banned in the U.K. until 1967, so it’s unlikely that any members actually saw it in 1960.

The Beatles members have given different answers during interviews

Meanwhile, The Beatles members themselves were often cryptic about where their name came from. In an interview with Dusty Springfield, Lennon was asked about this and he simply said: “I just thought of it.”

Yet, when he published an amusing biography of The Beatles in 1961, Lennon alleged that their name came from a dream.

“Many people ask what are Beatles?” he wrote. “Why Beatles? Ugh, Beatles, how did the name arrive? So we will tell you. It came in a vision – a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them ‘From this day on you are Beatles with an ‘A’. Thank you, mister man, they said, thanking him.”

Source: How Did The Beatles Get Their Name?