Ah, yes, variations. The mixing of letters combined with gene splicing that forms new names, such as Heart giving rise to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Restless Heart and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. But there are those who claim that even the Wilson Sisters’ chosen performance moniker was derived from 1960’s iconoclast, Captain Beefheart. “We’ve been facing this name problem for a long, long time,” adds Ellis. “Reagan chose to ignore it, Bush preferred the ‘junior solution,’ and Clinton was amazed to learn that there only 26 letters available. He wanted to ‘biggie size’ the alphabet.”

Not only are bands suffering from the shortage of original names, but solo artists are being affected as well. According to the U.S. Department of Musical Husbandry, the cabinet office charged with recombinant DNA experimentation in hopes of producing better performers that can follow in the footsteps of a Filter or a Travis Tritt, over 19,000 families named Diamond are expecting a child this year. “When you consider that about half of those births will be male. Then apply that figure to current naming trends, in twenty years we could have over ten Neil Diamonds,” says Ellis.

But is the world ready for ten Neil Diamonds?

“Ten Neils singing “Cherry Cherry” is a bit too much,” concedes Ellis. “But what’s scarier is the projected number of Celine Dions by the year 2030. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of.”