The Essentials

How DJs Got Their Names

Afrojack

My stage name comes from my hairdo back in the nineties, when I used to have a pretty impressive Afro. Jack comes from a term used in house music back in the days. [Source]

ATB The artist name ATB comes from my real name Andre Tanneberger. [Source]

Avicii
Before being known as DJ Avicii, the international superstar DJ was known as Tim Bergling. When the then-starting DJ wanted to set up a MySpace page to expand his fan base, each and every username was taken, including his own. This led him to derive his stage name from Buddhism upon the suggestion of his friend, with the word “Avicii” meaning the lowest level of Buddhist hell. [Source]

Calvin Harris
Harris said: “My first single was more of a soul track, and I thought Calvin Harris sounded a bit more racially ambiguous.
“I thought people might not know if I was black or not. After that, I was stuck with it.” [Source]

Dash Berlin
His artist name is a tribute to the German capital, where a young Jeffrey Sutorious span at Love Parade in 1999 – “Seeing all those thousands of people dancing in the street made a deep impression on me” he recalls [Source]

Deadmau5
deadmau5 says that years ago, he found a dead mouse inside his computer while changing the video card. When people started referring to him as the “dead mouse guy,” he embraced the moniker, using a numeral to shorten the name because “deadmouse” was too long for the internet chat rooms where he hung out. Thank goodness for screen name restrictions! [Source]

Diplo
His stage name “Diplo” is derived from his childhood fascination with dinosaurs. “Diplo” is short for Diplodocus, a dinosaur similar to a Brontosaurus that lived in western North America during the Jurassic Period. [Source]

Dyro
I wanted an artist name which had something to do with my own name. Jordy van Egmond isn’t very easy to the ear so I had to come up with something else. DYRO is actually just JORDY rearranged without the J. [Source]

Hardwell
The name Hardwell was invented by his father. He started using it when he was 12 years old.
Hardwell’s real name is Robbert van de Corput. His father explained in the dutch talk show “De wereld draaid door” that he thought of the name Hardwell by translating his surename. Cor means hart in Latin. Put litteraly means well in Dutch. By combining these playful translations he thought of the name Hardwell. [Source]

Krewella
We came up with it about 4-5 years ago; it was actually before Yasmine was even in the group and while we were trying out other girls. I thought of it when we were writing down lyrics, we were thinking of darker, evil, sexy, feminine lyrics and the name popped in my head and I didn’t even question it. I thought it was the perfect name for a group that would have heavy masculine beats and feminine vocals. [Source]

Madeon
From long before the general public became aware of him, prior to even his first musical incarnation as Deamon (from which he derived Madeon), he has had a grand scheme with many components—the word he falls back on more than any other. [Source]

Martin Garrix
“We created the name Martin Garrix, which is really close to my real name [Martijn Garritsen], and from that moment on we started thinking, ‘How can we create a fanbase, what kind of profile do we want to create?’ Then we started releasing tracks on the labels, because before that I gave them away for free.” [Source]

Tiesto
Aside from being DJ Tiesto, he has also gone under the aliases Da Joker, DJ Limited, Allure, Paradise in Dubs, and more.
Back in his earlier years, Tiesto produced very different music under many different monikers. During this time, he produced in genres such as new beat, hardcore techno, and “gabber”, a dutch term coined for early electronic hardcore music. [Source]