What Did the Name 'Pink Floyd' Mean to Each Member — and Did Anyone Miss It After the Split?

Syd Barrett came up with the name by mashing together two bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, from a record he owned. To Syd, it was just a quirky, rolling pair of words that didn’t mean much beyond sounding strange and memorable. The rest of the band didn’t argue — it was 1965, and they needed a name fast.

Over the years, the name grew into something bigger than any of them. Roger Waters, however, always had a complicated relationship with it. He’s said in interviews that he never liked the name itself — thought it was silly — but he grew fiercely protective of what it represented: the band’s identity and his own creative control. After the breakup, Waters fought legally to stop the others from using the name, which suggests a possessive, almost sentimental attachment, even if he wouldn’t use that word.

David Gilmour and Nick Mason have both expressed a more practical fondness for the name. It’s the banner under which they made their best work, and neither seems eager to let it go. Richard Wright, who stayed closer to Gilmour and Mason after the split, apparently felt the same — the name was a kind of home. Only Waters ever seemed to resent it, yet he was also the one who couldn’t stop fighting over it.