The Bay City Rollers previously went by The Ambassadors, The Saxons, The Rollers, and The New Rollers.
Some Frank Zappa history: In the mid-sixties, young FZ joined a band called the Soul Giants. Soon after, Zappa talked the guys into playing songs he had written. The band leader, David Coronado, quit, not thinking that was the way to success; Zappa assumed leadership; and the band changed its name to the Mothers. “Mothers” as in “motherfuckers,” meaning they could “play like motherfuckers” (if you’ll excuse the repetition of the crude word, but that’s the way I wanna convey the idea).
When the band signed with Verve records, the label insisted they change their name, objecting to the meaning of the name, so the Mothers of Invention were introduced to the record-buying world. In an added twist, Zappa subsequently dropped the “of Invention” on some of the band’s releases.
I’d just come to this thread to say that I kind of dig the name Soul Giants. Maybe Frank should have kept it.
I like it too. But then again, it’s difficult for me to reconcile a track like “Return of the Son of Monster Magnet” with a name like Soul Giants.
They’d have needed to change the title to “The Son of Monster Magnet, Back At Ya.”
Zappa probably regretted missing that opportunity. 
The Maggots is a perfectly fine band name.
OK, but maybe not so much anymore if you add the word ‘Sex’ to it. But hey, tastes may differ.
And R.E.M. actually played a show under the stage name “Hornets Attack Victor Mature”
https://www.instagram.com/rem/p/B8eRQJppqv0/
I may be in the minority, but I really wish they would have stuck with that!
When 60’s psychedelia started to die down, SF area band Purple Earthquake changed their name to Earth Quake.
I understood dropping the Purple, but why split a perfectly good word?
The Beach Boys were originally The Pendletones which is a much cooler name. The record label changed that to The Beach Boys without even asking the band. Not only did the label (Capitol’s low rent Candix Records) change the band’s name, it also changed their “uniform” from the cool Pendleton shirts to the lame candy stripes.
I’ll agree on the “uniform” being much less cool. But the name change was a major improvement to my eye.
Imagine a bunch of Alaska teens singing along with the Beach Boys and having zero idea as to what surfing was or any idea what the lyrics meant. That was us.
True for us brits in the 60s as well, I think.
California was a golden land in the west, where all the girls were beautiful, the weather was always perfect, and we were free to take advantage of it all because daddy was rich.
I love the New Pornographers but boy oh boy they might want consider a name change pronto in light of current events:
They also covertly toured small clubs in Europe in the early 90s as “Bingo Hand Job.” I had a couple of bootleg tapes from those sessions.
that’s so cool! Could you imagine world famous groups doing that these days? It would never happen.
John Cougar went to John Mellancamp. Prince also went from Prince to a symbol? Or, the artist formerly known as Prince. I’m not sure about the symbol.
Mellencamp had had the “Johnny Cougar” (and, later, “John Cougar”) name forced on him by his record label when he was just starting out, as the label had argued that his actual surname wasn’t marketable. Once he became popular, and gained more control over his career, he started using his given name professionally, though through most of his commercial peak in the 1980s, his records were released under the name “John Cougar Mellencamp,” before he finally dropped “Cougar” entirely in 1991.
Prince started recording under the moniker “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince,” and used the “Love Symbol” sigil below, instead of his name, for several years during the 1990s, due to an ongoing contract dispute with his then-label, Warner Bros. Once he completed his contractual obligation to Warner Brothers in 1996, he started using his given name again.
Also, for the record, “Prince” wasn’t just a stage name, it was his real name: his given name was Prince Rogers Nelson.
Sweet originally was The Sweetshop and then just Sweetshop then just The Sweet and finally just Sweet.
Somewhere stored away at my parents house I have two 45 records of the same song. On one label it says “The Sweet” and on the other it just says “Sweet”. I was in my very early teens when I acquired those records in the early 70’s and it baffled me why. There was no internet to look such things up.