In 1988, the names Crue and Tommylee appeared for the very first time in the U.S. baby name data:
| Boys named Crue | Boys named Tommylee | |
| 1990 | . | . |
| 1989 | 8 | 5 |
| 1988 | 10* | 6* |
| 1987 | . | . |
| 1986 | . | . |
Both of these debuts can be attributed to the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe.
The band had more than a dozen songs reach Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart from 1984 to 1992. Their two top-ten hits — “Dr. Feelgood” and “Without You” — peaked in 1989 and 1990, respectively. So…what was drawing attention to the names Crue and Tommylee a year earlier, in 1988?
My guess is the song “Girls, Girls, Girls,” which climbed to #12 in the summer of 1987. More importantly, the song’s then-risqué music video — which depicted the Mötley Crüe’s four members (vocalist Vince Neil, guitarist Mick Mars, bassist Nikki Sixx, and drummer Tommy Lee) carousing at a strip club and riding their motorcycles around Los Angeles — was played frequently on MTV.
How did the band come to be called “Mötley Crüe”? Here’s how Vince Neil told the story:
Mick goes, “How about Motley Crew?” and we go, “That’s cool.” I guess somebody had come into a room that Mick was in and said, “Isn’t this a motley-looking crew?” when he was in another band. And we were drinkin’ Löwenbräu at the time and wanted to feel like we were worldly, so we put the umlauts over the letters and misspelled the name Crüe to make it look more European.
(I don’t know if any of the babies named Crue also got the röck döts.)
The particular focus on the name of the band’s drummer (as opposed to its frontman, à la Axl) is likely attributable to Tommy Lee’s second claim to fame: Husband of Heather Locklear. He’d married the actress, who played Sammy Jo Dean on the ’80s prime time soap opera Dynasty, in May of 1986.
Which name do you like more, Crue or Tommylee?
P.S. Mick Mars’ first child, a son born in 1971, was named Les Paul after pioneering guitarist/luthier Les Paul (born Lester William Polsfuss in Wisconsin in 1915).
Sources:
- Mötley Crüe – Billboard
- Wake, Matt. “Nikki Sixx and Director Wayne Isham Look Back on “Girls, Girls, Girls” 30 Years Later.” LA Weekly 22 Aug. 2017.
- Zlozower, Neil. Motley Crue: A Visual History: 1983-1990. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2012.
- Tommy Lee – Wikipedia
- Greene, Andy. “Mick Mars Goes to War With Mötley Crüe.” Rolling Stone 24 Jun. 2023.
- SSA
