One of my favorite obscure bands is Grace Darling. THe original Grace Darling was a real person, though; she was peripherally involved in some massive loss of life in a storm on the Irish Coast in the 19th Century, or something.
They Might Be Giants is a novel my mom used to have around the house. And Steppenwolf is a novel. My username is a literary reference too.
The Be Good Tanyas took their name from a song called Be Good, Tanya.
Mordred - from the legends of King Arthur Nevermore - not a character, but Poe’s “Raven” said it a lot.
Not literary, but historical: Jethro Tull - 18th century horticulturalist who invented the “seed drill” (which can be quite a dirty euphemism if you’re mind’s as twisted as Ian Anderson!) Bathory - named after Countess Bathory, the blood-bathing babe.
And I always thought that “Opeth” was really supposed to be Opus (Bloom County) but spoken with a lisp?? (And speaking of comic strips…would Blondie count?)
The horticulturalist Jethro Tull also wrote an agricultural book caleed The New Horse Husbandry which is supposedly where Ian Anderson first encountered the name.
Not important, but the former religion editor of my local paper wrote some articles about the preacher and former rock singer Jeff Fenholt when he came to our area. Whenever she’d list some of the groups he had shared bills with she always misspelled “Aerosmith” as “Arrowsmith”. I always figured she was confusing the group’s name with the novel.