He’s bagged an impressive 12 Grammys and is one of the best-known musicians of all time, yet some of Sting’s fans are still scratching their heads over the origin of his stage name.
Sting, born Gordon Sumner, was the lead singer and bassist for The Police from their inception in 1977 until they disbanded in 1986.
Kicking off a solo career in 1985, he has since sold over 100million records worldwide. Despite his stardom, however, the backstory of the moniker ‘Sting’ remains a mystery to many.
A baffled took to social media, where they asked: “Is Sting called Sting because he was in The Police and it’s just a pun on police sting? I had this thought the other day I’ve blown my own mind. As if the answer to this little mystery has been right there in plain sight all along.”
In an interview with Time in 2011, he revealed: “[My wife] Trudy calls me Sting. I was never called Gordon. You could shout Gordon in the street and I would just move out of your way. My children call me Dad.”
The story behind his nickname dates back to his days with The Police – and it’s all about his fashion sense.
He once told the Daily Star: “He [a bandmate] made me sing a song which was awful. So, in protest I began to wear a black and yellow top. He started to call me Sting as a joke. I’m grateful for it now as when you have to sign something, it’s short!”.
And during a CBS Sunday Morning interview in 2016, he said: “I used to play in a traditional jazz group when I was 16 with much older guy.
“I used to wear these yellow and black sweaters. And they thought I looked like a wasp. They joked, they called me Sting and they thought it was hilarious – they kept calling me Sting and that became my name.”
One fan commented on Reddit: “I had always hoped it was because of the Hobbit.”
Another chimed in: “The story back in the mid 80s was that he had a black and yellow striped sweater that someone said made him look like a bee, hence the name ‘Sting’.”
A third enthusiast shared: “Before forming The Police in 1977, in the early part of that decade he was in a group called the Phoenix Jazzmen (like the rising fictional bird, not the city).
“He had a habit of wearing a yellow and black jacket most of the time. The black stripes went left to right on the jacket.
“One of his band mates said he resembled a wasp insect and the joking obviously led to them nicknaming him Sting.
“Gordon could take a joke, looks like, and kept it. Yes, it did kind of come in handy, being in a group called The Police.
“Pretty gutsy thing to name your band, knowing what a great sense of humour law enforcement sometimes has.”
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