Popular baby names change every year, but here we bring you the top names in the U.S. of all time — or at least since the government started keeping count.
A week or so ago, we presented to you Nephele‘s lists of the most popular baby names for each letter of the alphabet over the 130-year period from 1880 to 2009. Though you all found these stats fascinating, and, as always, made some perceptive observations, there was a shout-out for the overall, cumulative list of most popular names no matter what their first initial.
So Nephele went back to the drawing board (aka the U.S. Social Security Administration’s complete names lists) and generously offers now a list of the Top 100 names given to babies over the whole period, for your perusal and commentary.
Again, you might be surprised to find Patricia in the second spot—a name that is not even in the Top 500 today. Of course, Social Security counts every spelling separately, so that if we were to add together Katherine and Catherine, she would jump up to seventh place, and then if Kathryn were factored in, the total would be 1,692,290— beating out Patricia for the second spot.
As the list of popular baby names stands, there are only a dozen girl millionaires, compared to 27 boys, showing once more the gender disparity in popularity. (Please note that due to a computer glitch, the last number is left off the boys’ column, so that the names from James to Timothy are all over a million.) It’s also interesting to note that today’s top girl, Isabella, has not yet reached Top 100 status, and nor has Number Two boy Ethan, so we can be sure the list will gradually morph in coming years.
Here now the list of the top names over time:
Thanks again, Nephele!!
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1. Mary
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2. Patricia
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Elizabeth
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Jennifer
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Linda
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Barbara
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Margaret
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Susan
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Dorothy
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Sarah
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Jessica
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Helen
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Nancy
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Betty
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Karen
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Lisa
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Sandra
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Anna
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Donna
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Ruth
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Carol
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Kimberly
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Ashley
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Michelle
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Laura
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Amanda
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Melissa
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Emily
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De
Published December 31, 2020
What’s an eponym?
You know lots of eponyms—words based on or derived from a person’s name. They include many commonly used words in a wide range of categories, from fashion, to food, music, and science.
But, who are the people who donated their names to the English language? And, is it always an honor? Many folks are recognized for their creativity, inventions, and style, but others are remembered for their bad characters or behaviors. Let’s look at some famous—and infamous—men and women who became eponyms.
WATCH: Sisyphean: Visual Word of the Day
Cardigan
James Brudenell, the seventh Earl of Cardigan, was a British general who, in 1854, led the charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. Brudenell was wealthy and stylish, so he outfitted his regiment in uniforms that were stylish as well: knitted-wool waistcoats. He was hailed as a hero when he returned home, and the knitted waistcoat became a popular item.
Cardigans—collarless knitted sweaters that open down the front—were long considered utilitarian but not glamorous. Over time, that changed, as Coco Chanel introduced her version of the cardigan to the world in the early 1900s. More recently, J. Crew and other brand cardigans became a signature of Michelle Obama’s wardrobe.
Shirley Temple
Do you recall ordering a Shirley Temple cocktail in a restaurant when you were young? The non-alcoholic mixed drink is traditionally made with ginger ale, a splash of grenadine, and garnished with a maraschino cherry.
Supposedly, it was invented by a Hollywood bartender for child star Shirley Temple, so she had something to sip while her parents drank old-fashioneds (also garnished with a maraschino cherry).
Boycott
Here’s another guy who might not be so pleased to have a verb (and a noun) named after him. Charles Cunningham Boycott was an English estate manager operating out of Ireland. In 1880, his unfair rent practices and evictions led local activists of the Irish Land League to encourage Boycott’s tenants to stop harvesting crops. Local shops supported the workers and refused to serve Boycott.
Today, people continue to boycott, or “refuse to deal with,” a country, organization, or person as a protest or punishment.
Learn even more about boycott, and how it differs from strike, here!
Graham cracker
We have Reverend Sylvester Graham, a 19th-century Presbyterian minister, to thank for the graham cracker. While he didn’t invent the snack, he preached about vegetarian diets and the temperance movement, and he emphasized eating whole-grain bread. Graham flour and graham crackers were created for his followers, known as “Grahamites.”
It’s a good bet, though, that those graham crackers weren’t as sweet as the tasty treats we enjoy today. That also makes us wonder … who invented the s’more?
Saxophone
John Coltrane, King Curtis, Stan Getz, Kenny G., and Charlie Parker are among the great jazz and rhythm-and-blues saxophone players who can thank Adolphe Sax for inventing the instrument in 1846.
His new instrument found a home in military bands, but it took decades for the saxophone to become a respected classical instrument. In fact, Sax should thank American jazz and rhythm-and-blues musicians for popularizing his instrument in the early 1920s and 1940s. In the mid-50s, the saxophone began appearing in pop songs and then was adopted by some rock-and-roll bands. Can you imagine Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band without Clarence Clemons’ thrilling sax solos?
Dahlia
The name dahlia was bestowed on this colorful, flowery plant in the late 1700s (after it was introduced to Europe) to honor Anders Dahl, an 18th-century Swedish botanist. Dahl must have been quite popular, too, because different botanists are credited for conferring the name. The plant is originally from Mexico, and the dahlia is the national flower of Mexico.
Did you know dahlia is the name of a type of firework, too? Find out some other types here!
Bloomers
“Let men be compelled to wear our dress for a while, and we should soon hear them advocating for change.” Amelia Bloomer wrote this in the March 1851 edition of Lily, a newspaper dedicated to helping women gain suffrage and equal economic and educational opportunities.
Bloomer had enough of the corsets and petticoats women were expected to wear at that time. She began to wear an outfit that consisted of a loose-fitting blouse, a knee-length skirt, and baggy pants. That led to a “bloomer craze,” and soon bloomers became a symbol of women’s rights.
Dunce
Would John Duns Scotus—a medieval philosopher commonly called John Duns (Scotus identifies him as a Scot)—be pleased to know we call a dull-witted or stupid person a dunce? John Duns, who was fond of wearing pointy hats, was well thought of in his time. His followers, called “Dunsmen,” also sported conical hats.
But during the Renaissance, his ideas fell out of favor and were considered behind the times or stupid. So pointy hats, or dunce caps, became symbols of dimwits, dopes, and idiots.
Mesmerize
An eponym is a word derived from a person’s name, but you have to do something pretty special for your name to become a verb.
To mesmerize is “to hypnotize,” named for Franz Anton Mesmer, a German physician of the late 1700s. Mesmer was famous for his theory of animal magnetism, or the flow of spiritual energy between physical beings. Animal magnetism was initially the centerpiece of Mesmerism, Mesmer’s field of hypnosis, but in today’s vernacular a person can be “mesmerized” by a painting or a dog as easily as a hypnotic session.
Gerrymandering
To gerrymander is to divide a state or county into electoral districts so as to skew the concentration of votes and give one political party an advantage. This is an example of the other side of eponym coinage: doing something so infamous that your name becomes a verb.
The term is named for Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. In 1812 Gerry reshaped one of his voting districts in the shape of a salamander as a political scheme, so this eponym is also a portmanteau: Gerry + salamander = Gerrymander.
To be infamous or notorious, now that is the question. Do you know the difference between the two?
Silhouette
A traditional silhouette is an outline drawing, or a profile portrait cut from black paper. The word arose in the late 1700s when Etienne de Silhouette, a French minister of finance, imposed high taxes on the French upper classes during the Seven Years War.
Because painted portraits were too pricey and photography hadn’t been invented yet, these profile cut outs were an inexpensive way to immortalize a face. At the time, Silhouette’s name was synonymous with anything made cheaply, but for these paper portraits the name stuck to this day.
Leotard
“He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young man on the flying trapeze.” If you’ve ever found yourself singing this catchy 19th-century song, then you already know something about Jules Leotard.
Leotard was a revolutionary French acrobat who developed the art of trapeze in the late 1800s. He often performed in a skin-tight one-piece body suit that now bears his name, the leotard.
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I love Sarai! It’s so beautiful and underused 
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Nathan
Gavin
Harrison
Parker
Clarke
Ivy
Savannah
Paige
Nina
Mira
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Ooh Clarke is a great boys name. I’m going to file that away in my notes for a future-born son!
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Camille
Greta
Marin
Beatrice
April
Graham
Andy
Jarom
Frank
Harrison
I’m really not sure of my reasoning! I think they all just feel…right to me. I just get excited when I see them.
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Desmond Felix Milo Juniper Sequoia Alexis Violet Paloma Luz Lorelei
Some are family names, most have nice vowels and/or unusual letters, and some are inspired by characters.
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Why’s hard! I mostly just like names because I think they sound good, although I do especially like nature names. Off the top of my head, here are 5 for girls & boys:
Sierra
Cassidy
Mila
Linnea
Alice
Blake
Connor
Hudson
Brooks
Damian
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I know, the “why” is pretty hard hehe. I think for me, my favourites are names tied to a specific person or time in my life who I’d want to honour/remember with that name.
Love your favourites, btw!
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Annabelle Arabella Charlotte Eleanor Genevieve Asher Lee Oliver Theodore Elijah Tobias
I love all of these because they sound cool But more importantly, I love that they all can be shortened to fun nicknames, which is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do.
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Allegra
Cherry
Wren (for a boy)
Isla
Rose
Claire
Guinevere (I don’t think I’d ever name a kid this or anything, I just love how it sounds)
Charlie (for a girl)
Scarlette
Kai (for a boy or girl)
I just love how these names sound, and that most of them are unique (besides Claire and Charlie) without being unheard of or totally outlandish (although Guinevere is verging on outlandish).
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Oohhh it’s hard to narrow down 10, but here goes nothing!
Cèline
Antonella
Nikolai
Efren
Wilhelmina
Elia
Dashiell
Davis
Bianca
Felix
It was hard to exclude Kenza out! It’s difficult to really tell explain why this is my list. I like to try come up with names that are not especially common (even though Bianca’s kind of common). These names roll off the tongue so beautifully, they’ve resonated with me for some weird reason or another.
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Haha I totally get what you mean about not being able to include others! Bianca is so stunning, as is Celine and I’ve always loved Dashiell. Love your list!
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Ezra
Anselm
Miriam
Gershon
Akiva
Zev
Abraham
Antonia
Zahava
October
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I love Antonia! Sounds so distinguished
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This is so hard…A few are family names from way back in my family tree, but others I just think are such great names! I especially love that most/all of them are names most people have heard of, but he/she would probably be the only one in their class with the name. Opinions?
Gideon
Carlisle (family name…NOT from Twilight!)
Cameron
Rueben
Luca
Layla
Maisie
Julia
Hazel
Mallory (just recently fell in love with this name)
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Love this! Julia is the first name I remember loving (I was also almost named that, coincidentally) and Layla is beautiful as well. Rueben is so spunky and sweet, I love it!
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Devon Seth Gale Kitt Cadence Annaleah Joshua Imogene Jane Maggie
I like names that aren’t too frilly, aren’t necessarily “strong” but sound smart and focused.
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Jemaine Betsy Hazel Gabe Jude Ira Porter Adelaide Atticus Margot
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Sienna
Alexa (now feel unable to use because of the damn Amazon assistant)
Silver
Scarlett
Quinn
Aisling
Niamh
Thea
Olympia
Athena
I definitely don’t have one clear theme, but these are just my favourite names for little girls!
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Athena, Olympia, Scarlett, Alexa (love this one too, agree it feels unusable) and Sienna are all on my list! We have a similar style I think
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Charlotte Henry Leighton Jude Harper Benjamin Grace Landon Grey Holden
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Gwendolyn — I’ll always love this name, but my mom’s face when I told her about it has made me no longer want to use it
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Elowen — similar to Gwendolyn but you get the cute nickname Ellie!
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Josephine
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Iris — grandma’s name, so pretty!
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Hannah — goes perfectly with me and my fiance’s name.
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Victor — just a really strong name
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Carter
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Liam — popular but solid name
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Bradley
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Elijah
ONE OF THE sublime pleasures in starting a band is the hallowed ritual of conceiving its name. Hell, it’s half the fun of learning an instrument, and truth be told, many musicians would grudgingly admit to having spent more time imagining the perfect band name than mastering their instrument. They will then head back to the kitchen to check on your jalapeno poppers.
Beyond funny ideas hatched over bong hits, the name of a band carries massive long-term implications for its musicians, dictating everything from potential radio exposure to logo design to what type of fans will respond. Some bands care while others don’t. Ultimately, a great band name provokes some sort of reaction that causes people to remember it, but at the same time, that leads people into the band’s music; because aband should exist for the music, not out of a warped sense of obligation to a clever name, and the only thing less cliched than a list of great band names is an attention-grabbing name with nothing behind it.
For your pleasure and derision, we have scoured our iPods, vinyl crates and unpacked boxes of cassettes (that we’ve dragged around from house to house for the last seven moves), to come up with the fifty best band names in history. Please note that this is not a list of the best bands, simply the best band names. Because some of these artists…well, you’ll see.
Here, in no particular order (despite the numbering), are the 50 Greatest Band Names of All Time:
50. The Flaming Lips—this brightly-spangled, Grammy-winning outfit enjoy massive worldwide popularity due to some extent to their catchy name. Most music fans have heard of The Flaming Lips, yet markedly fewer are those who can name a Flaming Lips song.
49. Godspeed You! Black Emperor—these Canadian post-rockers took their name from a Japanese movie about a biker gang named the Black Emperors, and if you have ever heard their music or seen them live, you will understand how this name—which has nothing to do with anything—makes perfect sense.
48. Impotent Sea Snakes—when the Editorial Board at The Weeklings asked me to contribute a column about the 50 Best Band Names to go along with their “50 Best” series, this was the first band that came to mind. ISS are my favorite underground band, with a gloriously provocative name that falls neatly in line with their sexually-obscene lyrics and a stage show that treats the First Amendment like a marathoner treats a pair of running shoes.
47. Lynyrd Skynyrd—named after their high school gym teacher, Leonard Skinner, this seminal Southern Rock collective managed to sell millions of albums with a name so phonically baffling that they named their debut album Lynyrd Skynyrd (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd), just to face the confusion head-on.
46. The Dancing French Liberals of ‘48—this old school punk outfit eschewed angry, confrontational punk naming conventions in favor of gleeful historical footnote. Nicely done, lads.
45. The Sex Pistols—simple, offensive and to the point. Which also sums up the musicians and their songs. The name represented an enormously ballsy gesture on the part of manager Malcolm McLaren; with such an explicit alias, radio support was anything but certain. Thankfully, he and the boys came up with a few ideas to let the world know about them.
(Video) Top 100 Bands Of All Time
44. Machine Gun Fellatio—weapons and a sex act. Says nothing about the music but it arouses enough curiosity to inspire further investigation, rewarding listeners with some of the most fun and danceable music of the past twenty years.
43. Blue Öyster Cult—with the umlaut and the ominous implications of the word “Cult,” BOC galvanized stoner rockers across the globe and in doing so, carved out a much-needed new direction from their original name—Soft White Underbelly.
42. Spooky Tooth—you’ve got to love a band that really goes for it, and nothing says “We’re going for it!” like calling your band “Spooky Tooth.” And being serious about it.
41. Alien Sex Fiend—three shades of scary here; you’ve got a fiend, but not just any fiend—a sex fiend. Just for good measure, cast this sex fiend as an extraterrestrial, and you’ve got one of the most adventurous band names ever.
40. Cattle Decapitation—San Diego’s beloved troop of pet-friendly deathgrinders chose this name for its shock value as a protest against the abuse and consumption of animals. Their lyrics and album art often feature humans enduring the systemic horrors regularly inflicted on farm animals. Also, the music is heavier than a black hole.
39. Happy Mondays—these groovalicious, pill-popping club faves conceived this paradox of a moniker to dovetail into their ecstasy-friendly strain of Britpop. Massive in Europe, US audiences missed the point, and the boat.
38. The Gaza Strippers—puerile, irreverent and five flavors of awesome.
37. Queens of the Stone Age—deceptively epic name for a gaggle of tatted-up dudes slinging sleazy jams about sex, drugs, and more sex and drugs.
36. INXS—sublime in its simplicity, hard to forget, and looks great on a t-shirt.
35. The Jesus and Mary Chain—this clumsy and awkward label, fraught with thorny religious implications, sent this band and their infectiously bleak music straight into the tiny black hearts of 80s goth kids everywhere.
34. KISS—one sentence, all caps, with a cool-ass font designed by guitarist Ace Frehley himself. In the 70s, idle-handed puritans alleged Satanic overtones, falsely claiming that the name stood for “Kids In Satan’s Service,” “Knights in Satan’s Service,” or “Kinder SS.” KISS can probably thank them for another couple millions of albums sold.
(Video) Top 50 Greatest Classic Rock Bands
33. Led Zeppelin—when word spread spread that two London studio legends (Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones) were forming a new band with two chest-beaters from the Midlands (Robert Plant and John Bonham), The Who’s Keith Moon derisively predicted that the project would go down “like a lead balloon.” Who bassist John Entwistle took it one step further, calling it a “lead zeppelin.” When those remarks reached Jimmy Page and quick-fisted manager Peter Grant, they adopted the name “Led Zeppelin,” with the wacky spelling to promote correct pronunciation. Looks great inside the cover of a chemistry book.
32. Massive Attack—not just any attack; a massive attack. Extra points for choosing a name diametrically opposed to their music, which is softer than the California judicial system’s treatment of Lindsay Lohan.
31. The Smiths—unforgettably mopey, just like their music.
30. Cindy Brady’s Lisp—a smirk-inducing reference to the youngest member of the Brady Bunch, whose speech impediment attracted callow taunting from the ill-fated Buddy Hinton. Still waiting for the Lifetime Network to turn this episode into a cautionary after-school special about the evils of bullying, starring Abigail Breslin.
29. Motörhead—a not-so-thinly-veiled reference to the band’s abiding enthusiasm for speed. The original masters of the umlaut, Motörhead wisely augmented the name with a bellicose logo and a catalog of songs that remind the entire known Universe and all lands beyond that they don’t give a flying fuck about anything.
28. Joy Division—these moody teens doubled down on the grim irony by lifting their name from the term assigned to a group of prostitutes in a Nazi concentration camp. Bleak name, bleak music and bleak ending to the band, which fizzled two years after taking the name, when lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide. The surviving members went on to form the more radio-friendly New Order.
27. Pink Floyd—even the most rough-and-tumble among classic rock vets draw blanks when asked to explain the name behind the fathers of psychedelic rock. Granted, it sounds ace, but what does it mean? Is it a drug reference? A crass euphemism for a part of the female anatomy? Hardly. The band cobbled their name from two Georgia bluesmen named Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
26. The Who—after alternating runs as the Detours and the High Numbers, these proponents of Mod culture opted for a name that was both memorable and certain to confound DJs, promoters and parents. The clip of Tommy Smothers asking the band about their name on the Smothers Brothers show was funny enough to earn its inclusion on the band’s glorious double album, The Kids Are Alright.
25. L7—with their two character label, these hard-rocking Seattle grunge gals resurrected an aged reference for the uncool. Make an “L” with the thumb and forefinger of your left hand and hold it at 90 degrees, then make a “7” with the thumb and forefinger of the right. Now put them together. Got it? L7’s “Shove” is one of the greatest songs to ever issue from the grunge movement.
24. Spinal Tap—nothing fictitious about this band, consisting of the dim-witted, hard-rocking English alter-egos of Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer. For their celebrated mockumentary about a struggling British heavy metal band, they needed a band name that was both bloated and believable, and with Spinal Tap, they scored a direct hit.
23. Ugly Kid Joe—a brilliant case of one band extending a middle finger towards another. Named as a send-up of L.A. pouf-rockers Pretty Boy Floyd, UKJ are perhaps the best example on the list of a band whose name implies everything you need to know about the music.
(Video) The 50 GREATEST AMERICAN ROCK BANDS of all Time
22. Bathtub Shitter—this Japanese outfit picked their title first, then filled in the band around it. If the name doesn’t induce even a teensy grin, you take life too seriously.
21. Gren—In the early-90s, L.A. rocker Brett White placed a classified ad in search of bandmates, signing the ad “Gren” instead of using his real name. He decided to use it as the new band’s name. An album was soon recorded and a top 40 single scored (“She Shines”). In a turn that would make Greg Khin proud, they named their debut Camp Grenada and sold t-shirts that asked, “What’s that stuff you said I’m on again?”
20. Dropkick Murphys—named after an old timey Boston rehab run by football player-turned-wrestler John “Dropkick” Murphy. Although the swaggering Celtic punks have been around for over two decades, many fans still insist on adding “The” to the beginning of the name. Stop it.
19. Niggaz Wit Attitudes—boasting arguably the greatest hip hop lineup of all time (including Eazy-E, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube), N.W.A. chose a name that told you exactly who they were and then dared you to have a problem with it.
18. Echo & The Bunnymen—a nonsensical name chosen for no other reason than its lack of meaning, and yet thirty-five years later, Echo & The Bunnymen stand as one of the most memorable players in the 80s post-punk movement.
17. Rage Against the Machine—it’s a credo, a command and a powder keg of a name, without a speck of irony. Great for those morning commutes when you can already feel The Man’s foot on your neck.
16. Alabama Thunderpussy—res ipsa loquitur.
15. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy—a sly play on old socialist literature that condemned “the disposable heroes of hypocrisy;” except those old school socialists didn’t lay down thick, juicy hip hop beats like these guys, who released the greatest all-time cover of the Dead Kennedys with their version of “California Über Alles.”
14.Cherry Poppin’ Daddies—the swing music revivalists have suggested that their name originated from an old R&B album and that they used it because it sounded sexy. You’d have to find an awfully deep cave in the middle of an awfully remote planet to find a right-thinking person who might possibly buy that laughable excuse for an explanation.
13. Peaches and Herb—people who assumed the name to be a reference to sex and weed were time zones away from the truth; it referred to the singers—Francine “Peaches” Barker and Herbert “Herb” Feemster.” Edges out Echo & the Bunnymen for “Least Threatening Band Name In History.”
12. W.A.S.P.—one of Tipper Gore’s favorite pincushions, this L.A. metal outfit inspired robust debate as to the meaning of the acronym. Convoluted theories abounded, including “We Are Sexual Perverts,” “We Are Satan’s Preachers” and “We All Smoke Pot.” In fact, one of the band members saw a wasp one evening and opined that “Wasp” would be a cool name for the group. Singer/guitarist Blackie Lawless later said that they added the periods between the letters, simply because nobody else was doing it and it might incite curious debate. Mission accomplished.
(Video) Top 100 Greatest Rock Bands Of All Time
11. Weezer—one word, two syllables and as shy and awkward as the creative force behind it. Singer Rivers Cuomo quickly hatched the name after scoring a last minute gig opening for Keanu Reeves’ band in Hollywood. His occasional asthmatic fits had earned him a fair dose of teasing from other children growing up, many of whom called him “Wheezer.” Millions of records later, who’s laughing now? (see supra, Cindy Brady’s Lisp).
10. 10,000 Maniacs—so fluffy is the sound of this Natalie Merchant-fronted 90s outfit that it’s easy to lose sight of the group’s hilariously over-the-top calling card.
9. The Brian Jonestown Massacre—the greatest 60s music revivalists of all time, the BJM summoned the game showWheel of Fortune’s “Before and After” trick to concatenate the name of the former Rolling Stone, Brian Jones, with the notorious Jonestown Massacre. Others bands have followed the blueprint (Kathleen Turner Overdrive, Willie Nelson Mandela), but as the saying goes, “ain’t nothin’ like the real thing.”
8. Einstürzende Neubauten—would that we had a four minute clip of radio DJs around the world trying to pronounce this German industrial act’s name, which means “Collapsing New Buildings.” Anyone?
7. Scoring Dope for the Ultimate Woman—while it sounds like it belongs on one of those Internet lists of great unused band names, these guys actually put out a respectable album in the late-90s before fading away.
6. Mott the Hoople—best band name story on the list. Islands record exec Guy Stevens, while in prison, found the William Manus novel, Mott the Hoople, and vowed to find a suitable band to take the name. Enter the UK’s Silence, who were desperate enough for a deal that they changed their name (and singer) for a shot at the big time. The 2011 documentary, The Ballad of Mott the Hoople, is one of the better rock docs in the past decade, shedding bright light and meaty insight on one of music’s most underrated influences.
5. Foxy Shazam—with a name that conjures a 70s porn queen, and the sound of a Freddie Mercury-fronted Led Zeppelin, these guys are the only act on the planet who can get away with the lyric, “That’s the biggest black ass I’ve ever seen, and I like it!”
4. Dethklok—in the same vein of Spinal Tap, Brendon Small needed a name for the cartoon death metal band that served as the centerpiece of a decidedly mature, late night show on the Cartoon Network. Consequently, he found something aching with doom and despair (“a Death Clock”), and applied heavy metal spelling conventions. That show—Metalocalypse—is one of the network’s biggest hits andDethklok is now a working band, whose 2012 summer tour with Machine Head was one of the hottest tickets of the year.
3. Dead Kennedys—wantonly offensive and entirely unforgettable, when this punk act first came out, this was the shirt you wore around the house when you wanted to let your parents know that you hated them.
2. Congratulations on Your Decision to Become a Pilot—another name that sounds so ridiculous that the first reaction is, “There’s no way this band really exists.” Well, they do. Or at least they did. Admittedly, the name is far superior to the music, yet big points for trying.
1. KMFDM—while the popular assumption behind this name is that it stands for “Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode,” this is unfortunately not the case; it stands forKEIN MEHRHEIT FÜR DIE MITLEID (German for “No Pity for the Masses”), although fans and critics alike simply use the initials.
(Video) 20 Famous Bands’ Original Names
Curious how some of these bands sound? We’ve put together this zesty little playlist with most of the bands above.
FAQs
What band is considered the greatest band of all time? ›
The Beatles are unquestionably the best and most important band in rock history, as well as the most compelling story.
What is the #1 band in the world? ›
As of 2020, according to Business Insider, The Beatles are at number one, having sold around 183 million units.
How did Camper Van Beethoven get its name? ›
The band’s name was coined by McDaniel: according to Lowery «McDaniel was into this stuff that would sound like it made sense, but really it didn’t… He’d watch a lot of TV, accept all this mass-media stuff and spit it out all chopped up. I got the whole absurdism influence from him».
What is the #1 song of all time? ›
Is BTS bigger than the Beatles? ›
They’ve also both swept up a vast number of awards, BTS with a staggering 407, The Beatles with 12, bearing in mind a lot more award shows exist now compared to when The Beatles were active.
Which band has the most fans in the world? ›
South Korean boy band, BTS, has achieved global success: two consecutive #1 albums on the Billboard charts, a sold-out world tour, and a historic stadium show at Citi Field, with over 40,000 fans in attendance. With the help of their fan base, ARMY, the K-pop group has the world’s most powerful fandom.
Was Queen bigger than the Beatles? ›
| ARTIST | COMBINED SALES TOTAL | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BEATLES | 22.1 MILLION |
| 2 | QUEEN | 12.8 MILLION |
| 3 | ABBA | 11.3 MILLION |
| 4 | ROLLING STONES | 10.1 MILLION |
16 more rows
3 Nov 2012
Why did Camper Van Beethoven breakup? ›
What caused Camper Van Beethoven’s initial split-up in 1990? First, we basically kicked Jonathan out of the band because we got to the point where we didn’t feel like we could function with him in the band. He just made a lot of ultimatums, and there was literally no way the band could function.
Where is the band Cracker from? ›
What is the biggest selling song of all time? ›
According to Guinness World Records, Irving Berlin’s «White Christmas» (1942) as performed by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single worldwide, with estimated sales of over 50 million copies.
What song was a top three in three decades? ›
Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody‘ Has Now Hit The Billboard Hot 100 In Three Different Decades.
Who is the most popular song in the world? ›
The Top 50 most iconic songs of all time
- Smells Like Teen Spirit — Nirvana.
- Imagine — John Lennon.
- One — U2.
- Billie Jean — Michael Jackson.
- Bohemian Rhapsody — Queen.
- Hey Jude — The Beatles.
- Like A Rolling Stone — Bob Dylan.
- I Can’t Get No Satisfaction — Rolling Stones.
Is BTS bigger than Blackpink? ›
Blackpink is now tied with BTS (again) for the most videos on YouTube with at least one billion plays among South Korean musical acts.
Who is more famous BTS or 1D? ›
So who exactly has more cumulative social media followers? In doing the math, One Direction has a collective total of 52.4 million followers which is just enough to help the band best BTS’s following of 51 million followers!
What is the oldest band ever? ›
The Oldest Band — Spotlight — YouTube
What band has the most loyal fans? ›
Lists of rock bands with the biggest fanbases across the internet
- Linkin Park — 62.1 million.
- The Beatles — 41.6 million.
- Coldplay — 39.4 million.
- Metallica — 37.3 million.
- Green Day — 31.3 million.
- Guns N’ Roses — 30.4 million.
- AC/DC — 30.1 million.
- Pink Floyd — 29.1 million.
Which band loves their fans most? ›
BTS. K-pop boy band BTS has one of the most dedicated fan groups, known as the A.R.M.Y., which stands for “Adorable Representative MC for Youth.” They will not only support fellow fans, but they also will buy BTS concert tickets within minutes after going on sale.
Who is the most trending singer? ›
| Popularity ranking | Artist | |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Rihanna | Track artist |
| 02 | Drake | Track artist |
| 03 | Coldplay | Track artist |
| 04 | Eminem | Track artist |
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Who has the most beautiful voice? ›
Who has the most beautiful voice?
- Barbra Streisand. Barbra Streisand’s unique voice has become a mainstay of American music since the 1960s, earning her the coveted EGOT – an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, as well as Tony. …
- Etta James. …
- Aretha Franklin. …
- Whitney Houston. …
- Mariah Carey.
Who is the best female singer ever? ›
Thousands voted and named Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston and Judy Garland the top songbirds ever. Streisand took the crown with 30% of the tally, followed by Houston with 21% and Garland at 18%. These three pristine legends were far above the rest of the field.
Who is the best-selling solo artist of all time? ›
The 10 Best-Selling Solo Music Artists of all Time
- Elvis Presley. ~ 1.5 billion units sold. …
- Michael Jackson. ~ 1.0 billion units sold. …
- Madonna. ~ 340 million units sold. …
- Elton John. ~ 305 million units sold. …
- Rihanna. Photo credit: EJ Hersom. …
- Eminem. ~ 227 million units sold. …
- Taylor Swift. …
- Whitney Houston.
Who is more famous than The Beatles? ›
Drake just officially surpassed The Beatles in Top-10 Billboard Hot 100 Hits.
Who is considered the greatest rock singer of all time? ›
1. Bruce Springsteen. Bruce is the link between folk, ’60s R&B, punk, and of course, rock and roll.
Who is the greatest rockstar of all time? ›
Top 8 Most Iconic Rock Stars of All Time
- Jon Bon Jovi. The Bon Jovi band’s front man has scored himself spots in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Grammys, and roles in various movies and TV shows. …
- Elton John. …
- Elvis Presley. …
- Prince. …
- Bob Dylan. …
- Janis Joplin. …
- Jimi Hendrix. …
- Paul McCartney.
Who is the greatest American rock band of all time? ›
Indeed, many of their fans would say that, all things considered, the Eagles are the greatest American rock band of all time. Guitarist Joe Walsh joined the Eagles in time for their biggest album, «Hotel California.»
Who has the greatest singing voice of all time? ›
The greatest singing voices of all time
- 1 of 31. Barbra Streisand. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for BSB. …
- 2 of 31. Etta James. Charles Paul Harris/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images. …
- 3 of 31. Aretha Franklin. …
- 4 of 31. Whitney Houston. …
- 5 of 31. Mariah Carey. …
- 6 of 31. Elton John. …
- 7 of 31. Freddie Mercury. …
- 8 of 31. Adele.
Who has the most powerful voice in rock music? ›
Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant has been voted the greatest voice in rock by listeners of DAB radio station Planet Rock. The singer beat Queen’s Freddie Mercury, Free’s Paul Rodgers and Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan to the top spot in the UK poll. Plant scored just under 10 per cent of the total vote.
Which singer has the best vocal range? ›
But it’s Mariah Carey who takes the prize for the largest vocal range of all. She can reach a low F2 and hit an unbelievable G7, a note that dolphins would envy, and that only some dogs can hear.
Who is the king of rock? ›
Elvis Presley is, quite simply, the King of Rock & Roll. In 1954, the performer kicked off a musical revolution by modernizing traditional genres such as blues, country and bluegrass for contemporary (and more youthful) audiences.
Who’s the best rock and roll player? ›
1) The Beatles — 1363 pts.
- 2) Elvis Presley — 1319 pts. The King of Rock & Roll remains the King. …
- 3) The Rolling Stones — 1289 pts. …
- 4) Michael Jackson — 1266 pts. …
- 5) Led Zeppelin — 1231 pts. …
- 6) Madonna — 1197 pts. …
- 7) Elton John — 1193 pts. …
- AC/DC — 1190 pts. …
- 10) Bruce Springsteen — 1130 pts.
AC/DC — 1190 pts. …
Who was the wildest rock star? ›
1. Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy Osbourne is one of the craziest musicians ever – from biting off a bat head on stage (although he didn’t know the bat was real) to snorting ants from the floor, the “Madman” led a life that would have killed the strongest man on earth.
Which rock band sold the most albums ever? ›
1. The Beatles — 183 million units.
What American band has the most gold records? ›
Kiss have broken the record for the most gold record awards by an American band. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says that, in the last 41 years, Kiss have earned 30 gold albums – 26 Kiss records and the four solo albums released simultaneously in 1978.
Who was the most popular band in the 80s? ›
Here’s our list of the best bands of the 80s:
- Guns N’ Roses. From Los Angeles, California, Guns N’ Roses is definitely one of the most influential USA rock bands in history. …
- Metallica. …
- Van Halen. …
- R.E.M. …
- Bon Jovi. …
- Mötley Crüe. …
- ZZ Top. …
- Red Hot Chili Peppers.
1. Top 10 Greatest Rock Bands
2. The Top 20 Heavy Metal Bands Of All Time
3. Smells Like Teen Spirit — Rockin’1000 That’s Live Official
4. Rage Against The Machine — Killing In the Name (Official HD Video)
5. Top 100 Classic Rock Bands
6. The Most Fitting Band Names of All Time
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The Double
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow, Russia. He was the second of seven children of Mikhail Andreevich and Maria Dostoevsky. His father, a doctor, was a member of the Russian nobility, owned serfs and had a considerable estate near Moscow where he lived with his …
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The Trophy Case: Judgement
Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 into the lower nobility of Florence, to Alighiero di Bellincione d’Alighiero, a moneylender. A precocious student, Dante’s education focused on rhetoric and grammar. He also became enamored with a young girl, Beatrice Portinari, whose death in 1290 threw a grieving …
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Anna Karenina
Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in his ancestral estate Yasnaya Polyana, South of Moscow, Russia. He was the fourth of five children in a wealthy family of Russian landed Gentry. His parents died when he was a child, and he was brought up by his elder brothers and …
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Les Misérables
Although Hugo was fascinated by poems from childhood on, he spent some time on the polytechnic university of Paris until he dedicated all his work to literature. He was one of the few authors who were allowed to reach popularity during lifetime and one of the leaders of French romance.
After the …
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The Tragedy of Macbeth
William Shakespeare’s birthdate is assumed from his baptism on April 25. His father John was the son of a farmer who became a successful tradesman; his mother Mary Arden was gentry. He studied Latin works at Stratford Grammar School, leaving at about age 15. About this time his father suffered an …
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Valkyrie
Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born on 28 August 1749 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany as son of a lawyer. After growing up in a privileged upper middle class family, he studied law in Leipzig from 1765 to 1768, although he was more interested in literature. As he was seriously ill, he had to interrupt …
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Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes’ baptism occurred on October 9, 1547, at Alcala de Henares, Spain, so it is reasonable to assume he was born around that time, and Alcala de Henares has long claimed itself as his birthplace. The son of Rodrigo de Cervantes, an itinerant and not-too-successful surgeon, Miguel …
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The Red and the Black
A foremost French writer of the Romantic era, Stendhal was born Marie-Henri Beyle in Grenoble, France in 1783. A loyal Bonapartist he followed Napoleon closely during his military campaigns Stendhal’s novels reflect his intense love of Italy, his political convictions and the moral and …
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A Single Man
Charles Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet, translator, and literary/art critic. At his birth, Baudelaire’s mother, Caroline Archimbaut-Dufays, was 28; his father Francois Baudelaire was 61. Charles’ father instilled in him an appreciation for art, taking his young son to museums and …
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La captive
Marcel Proust was a French intellectual, author and critic, best known for his seven-volume fiction ‘In search of Lost Time’. He coined the term «involuntary memory», which became also known as «Proust effect» in modern psychology.
He was born Valentin Louis Georges Eugéne Marcel Proust, on July 10, …
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Florence Foster Jenkins
Born to noble parents (his father Sergei was a retired major, and his mother, Nadezhda, was the granddaughter of an ennobled Ethiopian general) on the 26th of May, 1799 in Moscow, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin became involved with a liberal underground revolutionary group that saw him exiled to the …
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Rumi: Poet of the Heart
Jalaluddin Rumi, Scholar in Religious Sciences and famed Sufi Mystic Poet, was born on September 29th 1207 A.D. in Balkh (modern day Afghanistan). Escaping Mongol invasions he travelled extensively to Muslim lands, Bagdad, Mecca, Damascus, Malatia (Turkey). Married Gevher Khatun of Samarquand and …
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Le procès
Franz Kafka was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austrian Empire, in 1883. His father, Hermann Kafka, was a business owner and a domestic tyrant, frequently abusing his son. Kafka later admitted to his father, «My writing was all about you…». He believed that his father broke …
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Kis Uykusu
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, the third of six children to a family of a grocer, in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant’s Guild, was a religious fanatic and a tyrant who used his children as slaves. Young Chekhov…
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El año de la peste
Major Latin-American author of novels and short stories, a central figure in the so-called magical realism movement in Latin American literature. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982. Studied law and journalism in Bogotá and Cartagena. He began his career as a journalist in 1948, …
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Der Name der Rose
He is a professor of semiotics, the study of communication through signs and symbols, at the University of Bologna. Also a philiosopher, a historian, literary critic, and an aesthetician. He is an avid book collector and owns more than 30,000 volumes. The subjects of his scholarly investigations …
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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
English writer, scholar and philologist, Tolkien’s father was a bank manager in South Africa. Shortly before his father died (1896) his mother took him and his younger brother to his father’s native village of Sarehole, near Birmingham, England. The landscapes and Nordic mythology of the Midlands …
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To Have and Have Not
William Faulkner, one of the 20th century’s most gifted novelists, wrote for the movies in part because he could not make enough money from his novels and short stories to support his growing number of dependants. The author of such acclaimed novels as «The Sound and the Fury» and «Absalom, Absalom…
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El león enamorado
Greek slave. Many of the 200+ fables attributed to him may not have been his own, but since his name is synonymous with fables they were credited to him anyway. Sentenced to death for heresy. Was thrown from the edge of a cliff, c. 560 BC. The excepted dates of his birth and death would mean that …
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Star Trek
Ancient Greek poet and comic dramatist Aristophanes was the son of Philippus of Athens. A leading exponent of the Athenian «Old Comedy,» Aristophanes lived most of his life during the Peloponnesian War against Sparta (431-404). Some of his works include «Acharnians» (425), «Knights» (424), «In the …
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Theatre Macabre
Ivan Turgenev was born into a wealthy landowning family with many serfs, in the city of Oryol in Southern Russia. His father, a cavalry colonel, died when he was 15, and he was raised by his abusive mother, who ruled her 5000 serfs ruthlessly with a whip. He never married, but fathered a daughter …
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Atlantis
Versatile Greek poet and tragic dramatist. He was the son of Sophilus, a wealthy arms manufacturer. Sophocles studied tragedy under Aeschylus, whom he subsequently defeated in the dramatic festival of 468 BC, thus gaining his first victory at these competitions. He became a general under Nicias and…
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Le bourgeois gentilhomme
Born between January 13 and January 15 of the year 1622, from a 25yo tapestry-maker, Jean Poguelin (who worked for the King of France from 1631), and a 20yo woman, Marie Cresé, in Paris, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin lost his mother when he was 10. From 1638 to 1640, he studied in the Jesuit college of …
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Oliver & Company
Charles Dickens’ father was a clerk at the Naval Pay Office, and because of this the family had to move from place to place: Plymouth, London, Chatham. It was a large family and despite hard work, his father couldn’t earn enough money. In 1823 he was arrested for debt and Charles had to start …
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Famine
Maksim Gorky is a pseudonym of Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov, who was born into a poor Russian family in Nizhnii Novgorod on Volga river. Gorky lost his father at an early age, he was beaten by his stepfather and became an orphan at age 9, when his mother died. He was brought up by his grandmother, …
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Nineteen Eighty-Four
Born the son of an Opium Agent in Bengal, Eric Blair was educated in England (Eton 1921). The joined the British Imperial Police in Burma, serving until 1927. He then travelled around England and Europe, doing various odd jobs to support his writing. By 1935 he had adopted the ‘pen-name’ of ‘George…
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Eliza Graves
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, named David Poe Jr., and his mother, named Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, were touring actors. Both parents died in 1811, and Poe became an orphan before he was 3 years old. He was adopted by John Allan, a tobacco …
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Blow-Up
One of the most important Argentinian writers of all time, Julio Cortazar was born in Belgium. When he was a child he went with his parents to Argentina. She stayed in Buenos Aires until 1951, when he went to Paris and he stayed in France until his death. His first book of short stories was «…
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
A gifted poet, playwright and wit, Oscar Wilde was a phenomenon in 19th-century England. He was illustrious for preaching the importance of style in life and art, and of attacking Victorian narrow-mindedness.
Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1854. He studied at Trinity College in Dublin before …
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La cicala e la formica
Born in July 8, 1621, in Château-Thierry (Champagne, France), where his father was in charge of Water, Forests and Hunting, Jean de la Fontaine spent his whole childhood and adolescence in the countryside, where he mainly studied Latin language. In 1641, he moved to Paris to continue his study at …
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René
Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague on the 4th of December 1878 as the son of a military man working with railroads. After he visited a military Upper School he tried to avoid the army and did the preparations for the final exams and the final exams in private. He went to university to study …
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Don Juan DeMarco
Lord Byron seemed destined from birth to tragedy. His father was the handsome but feckless Captain John «Mad Jack» Byron and his mother the Scottish heiress Catherine Gordon, the only child of the Laird of Gight.
Captain Byron abandoned his wife and child leaving Catherine to bring up young Byron on…
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Frozen
H.C. Andersen was born in 1805. His father (Hans Andersen) was a poor shoemaker and his mother a washerwoman. The family did not have a permanent address until 1807. The family lived for the first time together at Munkemøllestræde. The father worked as an independent shoemaker, with a workshop in …
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Morte a Venezia
Thomas Mann was probably Germany’s most influential author of the 20th century, receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. Born on 6 June 1875 in Lübeck, his family moved to Munich in 1893, where he lived until 1933 and wrote some of his most successful novels like «Buddenbrocks» (1901), «…
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The Count of Monte Cristo
His paternal grandparents were Marie Cessete Dumas (a Haitian slave) and Marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Antoine disapproved of their son, Thomas-Alexandre, joining the French army under the «Davy de la Pailleterie» name, so Thomas-Alexandre used his mother’s surname instead. He became a …
Triangle of Sadness
Joyce was born at 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin, on 2 February 1882. His father invested unwisely, and the family’s fortunes declined steadily. Joyce graduated from University College Dublin (UCD), in 1902. He briefly studied medicine in Paris but his mother’s impending death from cancer …
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Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow on February 10, 1890 into an artistic family of Russian-Jewish heritage. His father was an acclaimed artist named Leonid Pasternak, who converted to Christianity, and his mother was a renown concert pianist named Rosa Kaufman. Their home was open to family friends…
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Take This Waltz
Federíco Garcia Lorca was born in the south of Spain (Andalusia) in 1898 and soon became the region’s most famous artist. A poet, playwright, artist, musician and lecturer, he wrote groundbreaking plays such as ‘Blood Wedding’ and ‘Yerma’. His support of the Spanish Republic in the 1930s led to his…
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American Roulette
Pablo Neruda was the pseudonym of Chilean poet Ricardo Neftali Reyes Basualto. He was born in Parral, a little town in central Chile, but his family moved to Temuco City when he was just a few months old. It was there he showed interest in poetry and made his early works, and where he picked «Pablo…
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El Fetewa
Najeeb Mahfouz was born on December 11, 1911 in Cairo, Egypt. He was a writer, known for El Fetewa (1957), El wahsh (1954) and El Naser Salah el Dine (1963). He was previously married to Atiyyatallah Ibrahim. He died on August 30, 2006 in Cairo, Egypt.
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Burnt Hickory
Nikolai (Mykola) Gogol was a Russian humorist, dramatist, and novelist of Ukrainian origin. His ancestors were bearing the name of Gogol-Janovsky and claimed belonging to the upper class Polish Szlachta. Gogol’s father, a Ukrainian writer living on his old family estate, had five other children. He…
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To Have and Have Not
Ernest Hemingway was an American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize (1953) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) for his novel The Old Man and the Sea, which was made into a 1958 film The Old Man and the Sea (1958).
He was born into the hands of his physician father. He was the second of six …
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Good Omens
Neil Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films. He is best known for the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book.
As a child and a teenager, Gaiman read the works of C. S. …
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Phèdre
Jean-Baptiste Racine (22 December 1639 — 21 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western tradition and world literature. Racine was primarily a tragedian, …
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Bajo la metralla
Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, in Mondovi, Algeria. His parents were Spanish-French-Algerian (pied noir) colonists. His father, Lucien, died in the Battle of Marne (1914) during WWI. His mother, named Catherine Helene Sintes was of Spanish origin, she was a deaf mute due to a stroke, …
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Les orgueilleux
Jean-Paul Charles-Aymard Sartre was born on June 21, 1905, in Paris, France. His father, Jean-Baptiste Sartre, was an officer in the French Navy. His mother, Anne-Marie Schweitzer, was the cousin of Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Sartre was one year old when his father died. He was …
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Lifeboat
John Steinbeck was the third of four children and the only son born to John Ernst and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. His father was County Treasurer and his mother, a former schoolteacher. John graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and attended classes at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 …
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera was born on April 1st 1929 in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He wrote his first poems during his high school years. After World War II he worked as a jazz musician before going to college. He studied music, film and literature at university in Prague. He moved on to become a professor at the …
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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Jules Gabriel Verne (1828-1905) was one of the most famous French novelists of all time. His major work is the «Extraordinary Journeys», a series of more than sixty adventure novels including «Journey to the Center of the Earth», «Around the World in 80 Days», «20.000 Leagues under the Seas» and «…
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Lionizing Murderers
Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri in 1835, grew up in Hannibal. He was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. Throughout his career, Twain served as a writer, lecturer, reporter, editor, printer, and prospector. Twain took his pen name from an alert cry used on his…
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Kraft Television Theatre
François Rabelais was a French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He is primarily known as a writer of satire, of the grotesque, and of bawdy jokes and songs.
Ecclesiastical and anticlerical, Christian and considered by some as a free thinker, a doctor and …
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Alageyik
Yasar Kemal was born on October 6, 1923 in Osmaniye, Adana, Turkey. He was a writer, known for Лань (1958), Tus (1955) and Namus Düsmani (1957). He was previously married to Ayse Semiha Baban and Thilda Serrero. He died on February 28, 2015 in Istanbul, Turkey.
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My Fair Lady
The Anglo-Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, acquired a reputation as the greatest dramatist in the English language during the first half of the 20th Century for the plays he had written at the height of his creativity from «Mrs. …
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Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer of Irish descent, considered a major figure in crime fiction. His most famous series of works consisted of the «Sherlock Holmes» stories (1887-1927), consisting of four novels and 56 short stories. His other notable series were the «Professor Challenger» …
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Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen was born on December 16th, 1775, to the local rector, Rev. George Austen (1731-1805), and Cassandra Leigh (1739-1827). She was the seventh of eight children. She had one older sister, Cassandra. In 1783 she went to Southampton to be taught by a relative, Mrs. Cawley, but was brought …
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The Ribald Tales of Canterbury
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1343 in London, England, UK. He was a writer. He was previously married to Philippa Roet. He died on October 25, 1400 in London, England.
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Le Petit Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born into a family of old provincial nobility. Failing his final exams at a preparatory school, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture. In 1921, he began military service in the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs, and sent to Strasbourg for pilot training. The…
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My Foolish Heart
U.S. writer whose novel «The Catcher in the Rye» (1951) won critical acclaim and devoted admirers, especially among the post-World War II generation of college students. His entire corpus of published works consists of that one novel and 13 short stories, all originally written in the period 1948-…
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Orlando
London-born Virginia Woolf came from a wealthy family and, unlike her brothers, received her education at home, an unusual step for the times. Her parents had both had children from previous marriages, so she grew up with a variety of siblings, stepbrothers and stepsisters. Her father was a …
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8 femmes
Louis Aragon was born on October 3, 1897, in Paris, France. He graduated from Lycée Carnot, then studied medicine in Sorbonne and befriended a fellow medical student André Breton. In 1917 he was drafted in the First World War and served in a military hospital. There he met Guillaume Apollinaire and…
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The Enigma of Benito Cereno
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his …
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Sapho
Alphonse Daudet was born on May 13, 1840 in Nîmes, France. He was a writer, known for Sapho (1934), Sapho (1917) and Sapho (1913). He was previously married to Julia Allard. He died on December 16, 1897 in Paris, France.
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Podnyataya tselina
Mikhail Sholokhov was a Russian writer who received a Nobel prize for his epic novel ‘Tikhiy Don’.
He was born in 1905 into a Cossack family of farmers in Kruzhilin, Veshenskaya, Rostov province in Southern Russia. His high school studies were interrupted by the Russian revolution and the Civil War, …
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Enemy
José Saramago was born on November 16, 1922 in Azinhaga, Golega, Portugal. He was a writer and actor, known for Враг (2013), Слепота (2008) and O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo. He was previously married to Pilar del Río and Ilda …
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Die Dreigroschenoper
Bertolt Brecht was born on 10 February 1898 in Augsburg, Germany and one of the country’s most influential poets, playwrights and screenwriters. His most famous work was the musical «The Threepenny Opera» (with Kurt Weill), but his dramas such as «Mother Courage and Her Children» or «The Good …
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Cats
T.S. Eliot ranks with William Butler Yeats as the greatest English language poet of the 20th Century and was certainly the most influential. He was born Thomas Stearns Eliot into the bosom of a respectable middle class family on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. The family had roots in New…
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La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 — 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, although his poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently …
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Der Himmel über Berlin
Sabahattin Ali was born in Komotini, Greece, 1917; and assassinated in Kirklareli, Turkey, 1948. He worked as a teacher in Yozgat, Aydin, Konya and Ankara for couple of years. In 1945, Ali started to publish humorous and opposing magazine Marko Pasa. He arrested in 1948 for an article and sentenced…
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Full of Life
John Fante was born on April 8, 1909 in Boulder, Colorado, USA. He was a writer, known for Full of Life (1956), The Golden Fleecing (1940) and My Man and I (1952). He was previously married to Joyce H. Smart. He died on May 8, 1983 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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I, Robot
Isaac Asimov was born Isaak Judah Ozimov, on January 2, 1920, in Petrovichi shtetl, near Smolensk, Russia. He was the oldest of three children. His father, named Judah Ozimov, and his mother, named Anna Rachel Ozimov (nee Berman), were Orthodox Jews. Ozimov family were millers (the name Ozimov …
Writer |
Living
Kazuo Ishiguro was born on November 8, 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan. He is a writer and producer, known for Жить (2022), На исходе дня (1993) and Не отпуска&…
Soundtrack |
The Hours
Hermann Hesse was born on July 2, 1877 in Calw, Germany. He was a writer, known for Часы (2002), Siddhartha (1972) and Steppenwolf (1974). He was previously married to Ninon Ausländer, Ruth Wenger and Maria Bernoulli. He died on August 9, 1962 in Montagnola, Switzerland.
Writer |
Treasure Planet
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer from Edinburgh. His most popular works include the pirate-themed adventure novel «Treasure Island» (1883), the poetry collection «A Child’s Garden of Verses» (1885), the Gothic horror novella «Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr …
Actor |
Bridget Jones’s Diary
He married the actress Padma Lakshmi, the hostess of «Padma’s Passport,» and dedicatee of his eighth novel, «Fury» (2001), on 17th April 2004. The late Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against him for the novel «The Satanic Verses» on 14th February 1989. He is currently completing a ninth novel….
Writer |
A Woman’s Vengeance
Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894, at Laleham in Godalming, Surrey, England. He was the third of four children. His brother Julian Huxley was a biologist known for his theories of evolution. His grandfather, named Thomas Henry Huxley, was a naturalist known as «Darwin’s Bulldog.» His …
Writer |
Color Out of Space
Born in Providence, Lovecraft was a sickly child whose parents died insane. When he was 16, he wrote the astronomy column in the Providence Tribune. Between 1908 and 1923, he wrote short stories for Weird Tales magazine, among others. He died in Providence, in poverty, on March 15, 1937. His most …
Writer |
Doraibu mai kâ
Haruki Murakami graduated from Waseda University, Tokyo, in 1975. Widely considered one of Japan’s most important 20th-century novelists. His often solitary, withdrawn, and world-weary protagonists are generally stripped of Japanese tradition. Frequently called postmodern, his fiction, which often …
Writer |
The Last Temptation of Christ
Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Heraklion, Crete (Greece). He studied Law in Athens and in Paris, but soon he studied philosophy and literature. He travelled almost everywhere; he learnt many foreign languages and left his scientific research for Nitsche. At philosophy: «Ascetics» (Salvatores Dei, …