93 Band Name Ideas We Had Before Choosing 'Pinto and the Bean'

In June of 2010, we decided this little rock & roll project of ours needed a band name.  We had already written half a dozen songs since January of that year and the band certainly couldn't perform concerts without a name.  Soon, the thought occurred to us to ask people for their favorite band name ideas and to eventually settle on the one we liked best among all the choices.  We headed out to concerts, parties, and festivals and also sent out emails to friends.  When there were 100 band name suggestions, we decided to narrow down the list to a handful we liked.  'Pinto and the Bean' was obviously one of the choices.  It was sort of funny and it was definitely memorable.  It also wasn't such an over the top idea that people wouldn't take us seriously if we did choose it as our name.  Whenever people heard 'Pinto and the Bean', they either smiled or laughed, and almost everyone was amused by it.  It sort of had a Foo Fighters ring to it.  'Foo Fighters' sounds silly at first, but when you take a listen to any of their songs, you know right away they take their music seriously.  Well, our band name may be silly, but we certainly care about the music we put into the world; more importantly, we hope it makes a difference in other people's lives.



So, in the end, it definitely was a tough decision to choose 'Pinto and the Bean' as our band name - for the same reason it's difficult to make any major decision life.  Once you do, it's not easy to go back and change it.  Yes, there have been moments we've been self conscious about it, and we wondered if people pigeonhole our music into a certain category.  What kind of picture does our band name paint in a stranger's mind when hearing it for the first time?  Well, we chose 'Pinto and the Bean', be it awkward, silly, memorable or all of those things and more.  Popeye the sailor man said 'I am what I am and that's what I am'.  For better or worse, our band name is here to stay - and we hope it's not what's on the surface that rocks you, but the energy that lives within the music that does.  So, that's our story, and we hope you've enjoyed it.

Scroll to the bottom of this blog post to check out 93 band name ideas people came up with for our band.  Also, below are the 4 names we were debating upon before choosing 'Pinto and the Bean'

-Coke Babies

-Blue

-No Names

-Paul & Ivan

The following is a list of the band name ideas people came up with.  There are more that we can't locate, but here are 93 that we DID find:

-Sound Travels
-Galactic Shamanic Paragdigm
-Brown Town Thank You Ma'am!
-Dumbass Blonde
-Mario Bros.
-2 Raw
-Life Alert
-The Shades
-Cool Water
-The Glacactic Shamanic
-Cheap Beans
-I've Fallen & I Can't Get Up
-Angry Monkeys
-Tampon Lollypop
-Club &
-The Kidney & The Bean
-The Paulivanizers
-We Are Giving You Gold!
-Intergalatic Shamanic
-Strange No Names
-The Crazies
-Fist
-Ignorance Is Bliss
-Pyvan
-Mary Gold
-Organic Fiber Fools
-Chick & The Pea
-The Shadows
-Prison Bitch
-Mighty Lightning
-Double Fist
-Quiet Breath
-Stinky Boys
-Pauly and the Finkleman Doodle Bops
-Pinto and the Bean
-Paulapoluza
-Baby Of 9
-Shamanic Paradigm
-Whereabouts
-Organic Iceberg
-Amy’s Breakheart
-Blueprint
-Looks Better at Dusk
-Glory Hole
-Incases
-Future Mouth
-Punctuation From Mars
-Mario & Luigi
-Neutral 2
-Navy Beans
-Ivan and the Oily Spit Widgets featuring Paul and the Short Stack Sensations
-Flying Fading
-Natural Windblowers
-Banging Against Rusty Rails
-Cuddly Stranger
-Slutty Dumpster
-Galaxy
-Brand New Dawns
-What's Your Middle Name?
-Vergon
-Enigma
-The Argument
-Klutzy Winos
-Thing 1 & Thing 2
-Steamworks
-Paul & Ivan
-Bob's Your Uncle
-Dusty Sanchez and the Teather Speds
-Symbiosis
-Toxic Gasbag
-Dirty Rice
-By, You
-Ivan and the Sappy Japs
-Dust Cloud
-Palvin and the Chipmunks
-Waiting for Melanie
-Coke Babies
-Filfthy Boys
-Annoying Chilean
-Two Beats Off
-The Wet Umbrellas
-The Flaming Hars
-No Names
-Poppy Peterson
-Exit
-A Violet Mind
-The Believers
-Blue
-Life and Limb
-The Watermelon Monsters
-Shoot The Moon
-I Think I Dreamed About You Last Night