There was a time when bands were so massively great as to take their names from major cities, states and continents. Take our very own Chicago, and Boston, and Kansas to name just three.
Sure, now, after six decades of constant radio airplay, a band like Chicago just seems to embody the word so much better than the city itself. No matter where I am in the world, whenever I hear "Saturday In The Park", I am immediately taken to a time and place when there was no better place on this earth than a Saturday in the park in summertime, in Chicago.
But what about when they were just a band starting out? Was it easy booking shows and having to listen to every booker in town do a "WTF?" when you tell 'em your name? A band like that must have confidence to spare.
Of course, a band that thinks their sound is good enough to name it after an entire state is a whole other plate of pinto beans. Apparently, one city alone wasn't big enough to hold Kansas' charisma, much less their humility. :)
Then, after a rash of city-centric bands like Berlin (oooh, a foreign city, well played) it got really out of hand when bands began taking on the names of entire countries. I'm looking at you Mr. Sylvian (of Japan). Bravo on then naming one of your albums "Adolescent Sex". Now, there's a band name.
Leave it to prog-rock to take such antics to the outer limits of bravado, which is what happened when former members of Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, and The Buggles thought their accessible brand of prog-pop was befitting an entire continent! I guess they probably showed God-like restraint by not going for the brass ring and calling themselves Uranus, or, better yet, The Whole Fucking Universe.
Of course, these days, hipster bands are all trying to out-quaint each other with names like Deer Tick and The Dawes (as in "awwwww").
Why, if Keith Emerson were here right now, he'd probably drive a blade once belonging to Prince Albert (yes, the one in a can) through the heart of his main keyboard and seethe through spittle, "I double dog dare even one set of tone-deaf miscreants to even name themselves after a room, much less an entire building. They haven't the balls!"
Sounds like a challenge to me.