Where does the name Coldplay come from and what does it mean?

Last June we started this series about the origin and meaning of the names of the main musical groups from around the world. We debut with Maroon 5 and its mysterious origin and for our second episode we are going to keep track of another enigmatic story behind the band that we are going to talk about: Where does it come from and what does the name of Coldplay?

As happened with the Californian band, fate has wanted this band to also just turn 20 years since their recording debut. And fate or chance made the world know and admire them as Coldplay and not with the name (or names, rather) of Starfish or Pectoralz!

Because that was originally the name that Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland had planned to give to the boyband that they would form when they grew up. The germ of one of the biggest bands in the history of pop-rock in the world had its origin in the dream that two young British boys had after seeing NSync succeed.

For some reason or another, the musical sound they had in their heads changed over the years (luckily) and that’s how we got to the point when they met the members who would form part of the rest of the band at university. Their first rehearsals and ideas did not even have a name under which to create themselves until before a show in a club the owner asked for their name to register. Will Champion came up with Starfish as the first word that popped into his head.

The name didn’t quite convince them, so Chris and Jonny decided to ask their friend and colleague Tim Crompton who had baptized his own band by the name of Cold Play. It was probably the most successful loan in the history of music seeing what has happened in the 21st century.

What does Coldplay mean?

Theories about the meaning of the formation’s name are as varied and diverse as logical and plausible explanations have wanted to find their followers over the years. From high voltage erotic situations to the fact of being able to persuade someone with arguments.

However, it seems that the most logical and most repeated explanation in the industry is that the band kept the name of the group after knowing its origin, which is in the title of a book of poems called Child’s Reflections: Cold Play written by Philip Horky.