11 band names that don't mean what you think they do

There's no such person as Steely Dan or Pink Floyd. And those brothers weren't really named Doobie.

The Doobie Brothers in the 1970s.
(Image credit: Granamour Weems Collection / Alamy Stock Photo)

Walter Becker, the guitarist for Steely Dan, died on Sept. 3. His death has been followed by eulogies, tributes, binge album-buying, and — undoubtedly — numerous instances of people from the wrong generation seeing a picture of Becker with Donald Fagen, the other core member of the group, and asking, "Which one of them is Steely Dan?"

Musical groups, of course, very often bear names that don't reflect group membership, but there is a select set that bear names that look like they should be the name of someone in the group. Here, in honor of Steely Dan, is a greatest-hits list of groups that have made thousands of clueless dads ask, "Which one of them is ... ?"

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James Harbeck

James Harbeck is a professional word taster and sentence sommelier (an editor trained in linguistics). He is the author of the blog Sesquiotica and the book Songs of Love and Grammar.