Good blues names sound like a nickname someone earned: a place, a size, a howl or a fish, put in front of a real name, like Little Irma Varnado or Tupelo Cleveland Riddick. Half the great bluesmen and blueswomen were known that way. This blues name generator makes bluesman and blueswoman names in those classic shapes, plus blues band names and album titles.
Eight good blues names
All eight came from the generator, for singers, bands and records:
- Tupelo Cleveland Riddick: a hometown in front of the name, the way Memphis Minnie and Mississippi John Hurt were billed.
- Little Irma Varnado: "Little" is one of the oldest blues nicknames, as in Little Walter.
- Big Mama Fortune: for a singer with a voice to fill a juke joint.
- Willard "Gravy" Puckett: a nickname in quotation marks, which is how record labels often printed them.
- Hummin' Lemuel Glover: a nickname from how he sings, with the dropped g of the songs themselves.
- Earnest Tillman & the Kingsnakes: the leader's name and a band of hard-sounding animals, Chicago style.
- The Barrelhouse Hounds: a barrelhouse was a rough bar, and gave its name to a rolling piano style.
- Porch Light Blues: an album title in the oldest blues pattern of all: a thing, then "Blues".
How blues singers got their names
Blues names were mostly given, not chosen. They came from friends, audiences and record companies, and they fall into a few clear types:
- Size and age: Big Bill Broonzy, Little Walter, Big Mama Thornton. "Little" and "Big" often had nothing to do with height.
- Places: Memphis Minnie, Mississippi John Hurt, Texas Alexander. A hometown told listeners what kind of blues to expect.
- Sound and manner: Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett), Lightnin' Hopkins (Sam Hopkins). Several early singers were billed as "Blind", like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie McTell.
- Childhood nicknames: McKinley Morganfield became Muddy Waters. B.B. King's initials stand for "Blues Boy", from his days as the Beale Street Blues Boy on Memphis radio.
- "Ma" and "Queen" for the great women singers of the 1920s, like Ma Rainey.
Choose Blues name for a singer in those shapes, Band for a leader and their backing group or a juke-joint band like The Fish Fry Band, and Album for titles like Mean Old Flood and Down at the Blue Moon Lounge. Use the gender filter for a bluesman or a blueswoman.
Using a blues name
- Keep your real surname. Most blues nicknames sit in front of a real name, so Steady Sylvester Dancy still sounds like a person.
- Name the album like a song. Blues records are often named after one track, and blues songs after one plain thing: a river, a landlord, an empty pocket. W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" (1914) set the pattern.
- Check before you gig. Search the name on streaming services and with local venues before you print anything.
Blues runs straight into the Jazz and Soul Singer name generators. For a band in any style, try the Band Name Generator, and for the songs themselves the Song Title Generator.
For more genres, see all the music genre name generators.