Paramore

Paramore
Do you know a little French? If so you may already know that the word «paramore» means «for love». Or rather, its homophone «paramour» does. Hayley Williams and her band mates, however, did not know this when they chose their name. They got the idea from a friend's mom, whose maiden name was..yes, that's right: Paramore. They liked the sound of the word, and it wasn't until a year later that they actually looked it up and found out the meaning - which luckily enough wasn't anything crazily inappropriate. “We thought it was really cool,” Hayley once said in an interview, “it means 'secret lover' and 'for love' and we think that represents us well.”

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga
Miss 'Bad Romance' was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. That's a pretty name, but maybe a bit of a mouthful if to be used as a stage name! So why did she not just shorten it to Stefani? Where did Lady Gaga come from? Well, the story goes that, while recording some of her earliest songs, every time Germanotta came into the studio, her music producer Rob Fusari would start singing “Radio Ga Ga” by Queen. One day he texted her, simply typing “Radio Ga Ga”. However, his cellphone went on auto-correct, and changed the word “Radio” to “Lady”. That was it for Germanotta, who was in search of a stage name. Fusari says that “After that day, she was Lady Gaga.”

Pink

Pink
Despite what would seem like the obvious reason, Pink did not get her name because of her hair color. In fact, she dyed her hair so that it would match her name. Her actual name is Alecia Moore, though ever since she was a little girl her friends and family have called her Pink. Why? Because she so easily blushed. Rumor has it that young Alecia was at summer camp and someone pulled her pants down, making her turn bright pink. Ever since she has been known as Pink. In recent years, however, her birth name has been more frequently used. She says, “All my friends have pretty much reverted back to Alecia because the world has claimed Pink. It was my nickname but now it's not ours anymore, it's just how everyone knows me. Now Alecia is more like my nickname, my pet name.” In addition she says that whenever someone is mad at her, they call her Alecia.

The Spice Girls

Spice Girls
We all love them. The girls who spiced up our lives in the nineties and briefly in 2008. It was Geri who first came up with the name “Spice”, during an aerobics class back in '93. It fit them perfectly, as they were all really different. Though the name was already taken, by a US rapper, and thus in 1995 they changed it to Spice Girls. As for their nicknames (shame on you if you don't remember them), they were given in a feature by the Top of the Pops magazine in '96, after editor Peter Loraine suggested it would be a good idea. “Posh was the first one to be thought up because Victoria looks pretty sophisticated,” Loraine explained. “The rest were pretty easy really because the girls' characters were already really strong. The names jumped out at us. We laughed the most when we came up with Scary. Mel B was so loud – she had tried to take over our whole photo shoot.” The girls thought it was funny, and it didn't take long before they were known worldwide as Posh, Baby, Sporty, Scary and Ginger.

Ke$ha

Ke$ha
Ke$ha's full name is Kesha Rose Sebert. The dollar sign does not signify a love for shopping or spending money. Quite the opposite actually. In early 2009 she was wanted for the music video of a song to which she had collaborated. The song had already gained success, yet Kesha turned down the offer of appearing in the video. She had the feeling that her role would be to “shake her booty” and she was not up for that. She therefore said no thanks, and chose to live on the meager income she already had. This inspired her stage name. Kesha has stated that she does not like to put a lot of emphasis on money. Sounds good!

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