When Barbarella was Released in 1968, the movie was both hailed as a pop art masterpiece and derided as the worst sci-fi picture ever made. Ten years later, two teenage boys were watching television in Hollywood, a suburb located in southern Birmingham, England's second-biggest city. The date was October 20, 1978. The BBC was broadcasting Barbarella, and the boys-Nigel John Taylor, eighteen, and his sixteen-year-old Mend, Nick Bates-were entranced. Nigel and Nick had been friends for four years. They were huge music fans who were extremely knowledgeable about rock bands and new trends, and they were currently forming a band with another friend. None of the teens could actually play musical instruments at this point, but this didn't seem important. Their current preoccupation was finding a name for their new band.

As the movie began on BBC1, the boys tried to make sense of the totally daft plot, in which Barbarella crash-lands on Earth and is taken to meet the president of Earth. Upon her arrival, Barbarella strips off her clothes, and the president explains that an evil scientist, Durand-Durand, has purloined the Excessive Machine, designed to provide women with supersonic sexual pleasure, thus eliminating the need for men. "Your mission," the president directs Barbarella, is to "find Durand-Durand, and preserve the security of the stars!" Nigel jumped up. "That's it! That's our name!" Nick was confused. "Wait-what's our name?" "Duran Duran!" It was fine with Nick. Duran Duran sounded cool and futuristic and unlike any other of the new bands they liked. Asked much later why the band's name wasn't "Durand-Durand," Nigel-who later went by the name John Taylor-replied that it was because they couldn't hear the final Ds in the film, nor the intervening hyphen. So Duran Duran it was.

And still is. Book jacket.