It’s become something of an annual tradition here at FLOOD to write up a State of the Union address on artist names at the end of the year (or the beginning of the next one) given that the pool of monikers one can release music under continues to be shrinking at an alarming rate. As with last year, I thought another post like this wouldn’t be necessary after this practice began in December 2023, a.k.a. the year of Goose and Geese—but then I accidentally playlisted the song “heaven” by Mercury instead of the song “Heaven” by mercury and figured a third installment in this series may benefit our readers’—or just my own—sanity.
There’s surely a separate piece to be written about new trends in naming conventions, which for 2025 would likely center on the word “wet” (e.g. Wet Leg, BIG WETT, 100%Wet, Wet Market—yet another way in which Don’t You was a decade ahead of its time) and family trees (SONS, grandson, Your Grandparents, Great Grandpa), as well as some more oddly specific subjects like teeth (Teethe, Teethin, Teether, Tooth, Dead Tooth) and countless variations on a single name (Anika, Annika, AnAka). There were also plenty of returning offenders—we premiered tracks by Work Wife and Wifey on the same day, and I recall receiving a press email about Total Wife later that afternoon.
Elsewhere, the new ATO signees The Heavy Heavy started taking off around the same time the 2009 indie-funk hit “How You Like Me Now?” by The Heavy made a commercial resurgence, Remember Sports (f.k.a. Sports) returned around the same time as the band that made them change their name (not to be confused with Sports Team or AK Sports), and everyone from Danny Brown to Anna von Hausswolff to Revis to Gabi Sklar began singing about stardust.
One of my favorite trends, though, is artists who are clearly striving to make this list with a name that feels like a Scrappy-Doo to the household-name artist’s Scooby: Gorillaz and GorillaT, Björk and Bjarki, and Tinashe and Tenashee, along with indie-world counterparts like A. Savage and D. Savage (collectively known as Savages?) and the more formal Bonnie “Prince” Billy, William Prince. We even have Matt Maeson back the same year Matty Matheson launched his hardcore-punk band Pig Pen. I was also introduced to the trip-hop artist BEA1991 through a slew of new singles, all of which made me think of DFA1979.
Anyway, as the shortlist for the end of 2026 begins to slowly come together (I’ve just received an email about twangy psych-rocker Jack Harlon misspelled as “Jack Harlow” in the subject line), here are 54 more sets of artists that gave me a hard time in 2025.
Active Child / Child Actor
Two artists I’m well familiar with and could instantly identify as separate individuals a decade ago, yet in 2025 I was thrown for a loop when I thought it was the former who teamed up with NC emcee Deniro Farrar on new material.
Ada Lea / Arden Leas
Two budding singer-songwriters who perfectly model this new indie divide between pursuing the Americana thing versus the Grouper thing.
Alien Boy / Alien Boys
In terms of the emotional energy they bring to their music—one defeated emo-pop flirting with a “gaze” suffix, the other old-school punk—these two bands couldn’t be more different. Still seems like too many Alien Boys to be playing rock music around the Pacific Northwest.
ASkySoBlack / acloudyskye
Assuming the latter had a sky so white in mind with that moniker, that seems to be a pretty helpful mnemonic device for polarizing these two bands that have a mutual appreciation for rock music’s frustration/catharsis dynamic.
Bnny / Enny / Snny
Three artists approaching unobtrusiveness with their sound and vowel-less names from very different angles.
Bory / Nory
Two artists striving for the level of cult success where a doc crew will track them down two decades later for a feature called “Finding Bory/Nory.”
Bus Crush / bug crush
Speaking hyperbolically, one of these artists sounds like being crushed by a bus and the other sounds like being crushed by a bug.
CHVRCHES / CVCHE
“CHV-E-! CHV-E-!”
Deafheaven / Deaf Havana
Turns out Deaf Havana precedes Deafheaven by five years, but when you consider the fact that the latter’s shrieky black metal managed to reach more American alt-rock listeners’ ears than the former alt-rock band has over the past 20 years, I think Deafheaven are the definitive Deaf-h band.
Deradoorian / FearDorian
I predict that by the end of their music careers, Deradoorian will be working with Surf Gang and FearDorian will be a member of Dirty Projectors.
Doechii / Recoechi
Is there a member of Wu-Tang I’m not aware of with an -oechi suffix? There’s also a Zochi, if we’re expanding this beyond rap and into Afropop.
Dowsing / Downswing
This is one of my favorite kinds of getting confused by two artists’ names, where one looks like a strange misspelling of the more familiar one. Another fun example is when I think of the black metal band Weakling every time I encounter the Chicago noise-rockers Weaklung.
Drop Nineteens / The Droptines
When you disappear for 32 years and folks struggle to recall your band’s name.
d4vd / Dav1d
Ehh, I’m not touching this one.
Ekko Astral / Ecca Vandal
Neither act is a member of a cloud-rap collective led by Ecco2k.
Empire of the Sun / Empire of None
A little disappointing to learn that Empire of None is just Swedish Linkin Park and not a nihilistic new chapter for the overwhelmingly upbeat synthpop duo.
Friko / Farruko
If I had one complaint about Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here it’s that there wasn’t enough reggaetón.
Grade 2 / 2nd Grade
“Grade 2” seems like what they’d call second grade in the UK.
Greet Death / Heet Deth
I mentioned Weaklung earlier, but the Chicago noise-rock scene is actually littered with bands that deserve mentions on this list. Here’s a freebie: No Men, who aren’t to be confused with Nø Man.
GUM / Gumm
May October 29 forever be celebrated as Gum Day—the day The ’Gum pointed out that GUM and Gumm both released new singles.
HEALTH / WEALTH.
Naming your coldwave project “WEALTH.” in 2025 is one way to ensure you get tapped as a feature on DISCO5.
Jordana / Jorjiana
Jordana’s been racking up some high-caliber collaborators over the past few years, though she’s not quite at a point where she has GloRilla and Yachty’s names in her Rolodex.
Joyer / Joyeria
A “Joyeria” is also any venue in which Joyer performs.
June McDoom / Joon Gloom
Setting aside the fact that we already have a June Gloom, these monikers seem inevitable during an era of mass emigration to Southern California to write sad pop music.
Kings Isis / King Iso
Sort of like the difference between 28 Days and 28 Days Later.
King Woman / Sir Woman
I believe Sir Woman was knighted by King Woman.
Leaving / The Leaving
Before the two doomgaze bands called Leaving could settle things (here’s the one with a slightly smaller audience—doesn’t seem like either is on social media), this CHVRCHES (not CVCHE) offshoot is certain to swoop in and claim the name.
LEISURE / Adult Leisure
Adult Leisure is the sleazy little room in the back of LEISURE’s video store.
Mareux / Margaux
I’ve heard cats say both of these names while trying to get my attention.
Mildred / Mildred
One band makes subdued SoCal alt-country, the other makes chaotic, doomy noise rock—both released multi-part conceptual records in 2025.
oso oso / toso toso
oso oso 2: 2 so, 2 so.
PLAIINS / Plains
Just because Waxahatchee has a new side-project doesn’t mean she no longer holds the old one’s domain name.
quinnie / quannnic
I really like to paint myself as the victim here in all of this confusion about names, but I gotta respect the publicist pitching me both (lowercase) quinnie and (lowercase) quannnic within weeks of each other without getting tripped up.
Say She She / She Her Her Hers
Both names feel like ChatGPT struggling to process all of the pronouns it’s being fed via email signatures.
Shad / Shab
We’re about due for another SHAED album soon, as well.
ShrapKnel / Shrapnel
As big a fan of the rap duo as I am, I have to concede that the moniker is far more fitting for a thrash-metal band.
Sister / Sister.
One of these projects is a coterie of Brooklyn indie-folk songwriters who were clearly not expecting the Swedish sleaze-rock act of the same name to return in 2025 with a new single featuring Bam Margera.
Skegss / Legss
Is the double-S pronounced like a Z, or do you just hold the “sss” sound longer?
Spy / Pry
To complicate matters, I found three different Bandcamp pages for currently active noise-rock groups called “Pry,” two of which released records over the spring.
Suede / Suede & ’Lene
To counterbalance their music getting increasingly darker, the Britpop band introduces the zolo stylings of Lene Lovich into their lineup.
TAGABOW / TYGAPAW
They Yar Gutting a Potty A Water?
Tems / Nems
No new material from James Acaster’s music outlet this year, but I feel like Tems is still guaranteed to make an appearance on these lists every year paired with different people she wouldn’t feel too out-of-place working with.
This Will Destroy You / This Will Destroy Your Ears
Love the idea of a cover band taking a beloved post-rock group’s music and sapping it of its emotion, specifying with their name that the only thing they’ll ruin is your eardrums.
TOPS / Tors
TOPS released an entire album about how they’re still alive only for a band with nearly the same name to release their debut EP immediately afterwards.
Triathalon / Marathon
What are things I can’t complete?
Twen / Twain
“Weww I bet she’s back in the atmophewe, wiff dwops of Jupitew in hew hai-ai-ai-aiw.”
UMI / UMO
Can’t not read it as Unknown Mortal Irchestra.
Vines / VC Pines
Neither of whom played iconic meltdown performances on Letterman.
Wallice / Wallace
I actually found three artists who go by Wallace who’ve released music over the past five years split between three different continents and three very different kinds of music. Wallice’s parents knew what they were doing when they named her that.
Wednesday / Wednesday 13
A premonition of Wednesday’s mid-career crisis when they hit LP #13 and turn to glammy horror-punk.
Whitney / Whitney Whitney / Whitney K
I assume Whitney Whitney features twice as many members of Smith Westerns? I assume Whitney K features one thousand members of Smith Westerns?
Worm / Wormy
Just as the very-confusing year was winding down, my inbox got inundated with pitches for pre-album singles for both Worm and Wormy, two artists guaranteeing that 2026 will be just as disorienting
X & Ivy / X, Ivy
Alternate universe where X called it quite so Exene could fill in for Adam Schlesinger.
9th Wonder / Sixth Wonder
We all know that the ninth wonder of the world is the production on Kendrick’s “Duckworth.,” though word is also spreading that Colossus of Rhodes is out among the canonical seven with the concept of “djent-pop” taking its place.
