Named After

Band names have parents. Sometimes the paperwork survives: MusicBrainz carries an explicit named after relationship — 968 artists whose names are documented tributes to other artists. Which turns naming into a graph, and the graph into a family tree of tribute.

Pink Floyd needed two namesakes

The famous origin stories check out as edges. Pink Floyd points at two artists at once — Piedmont blues players Pink Anderson and Floyd Council — Syd Barrett's compound tribute, and the only major act in the graph assembled from two other people's names. Taylor Swift carries a documented edge to James Taylor (her parents really did name her after him), which becomes a three-generation chain when the noise act HNW Swift names itself after her. Depth also runs through parody: Pung Floyd hangs beneath Pink Floyd, giving Floyd Council a great-grand-band he never heard.

The gravity wells

The most-namesaked artist in the database is not Elvis, not the Beatles. It is Macintosh Plus — the vaporwave alias behind Floral Shoppe — with 24 acts named in tribute. Vaporwave treats a name like a sample: something to be chopped, pitched, and reissued, so the scene's founding document spawned a nomenclature. The runner-up, at 23, is 美浜ちよ, an anime schoolgirl adopted as a naming totem by a Japanese noise circle; close behind comes an entire My Little Pony constellation, because brony electronic producers named themselves after the ponies in industrial quantities.

Deeper in, the edges get delightful: five acts named after Johann Sebastian Bach, four after Adolphe Sax (the man, not the horn), four after Scatman John, eleven after Goofy — and a perfect folkloric chain in which Sint Kids is named after Sinterklaas, who is himself in the database and duly named after Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra, died 343 AD, present in MusicBrainz, zero recordings.

Even camouflage is documented: eurobeat producer Dave Rodgers — the voice of Deja Vu — is recorded as named after both Nile Rodgers and David Bowie, a stage name built from two heroes the way Pink Floyd was.

The chart above shows every naming family with three or more members. Orange dots are namesakes, sized by how many children their name has; grey dots are the tributes. It is, in the strictest documentary sense, a family tree of admiration.

Method: MusicBrainz "named after artist" relationships (artist→artist), 968 edges in the 2026-07-25 build; the figure keeps connected naming families of three or more. This records only tributes editors have documented — the true number is far larger.