Jack Black explains what the 'D' means in Tenacious D leaving fans gobsmacked

If you've been puzzling over how the band Tenacious D came up with the name Tenacious D, then today is your lucky day.

Jack Black and Kyle Gass formed the band after becoming friends as part of The Actors' Gang theatre troupe and buddying up on a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

What they really struggled with was coming up with a name for their band as they went through a few, including Responsive Chord and The Axe Lords Featuring Gorgazon's Mischief.

They finally settled on a name about 31 years ago after a performance in the summer of 1994 where they played 'Tribute' and asked the audience to vote on what their name should be.

Among the options people went for were Pets or Meat and Balboa's Biblical Theater, but another suggestion was 'Tenacious D' and while it didn't get the most votes Black said 'we forced it through' as it ended up being their favourite.

This is not the greatest band in the world, this is just a tribute (Jeff Hahne/Getty Images)

As for what the name actually means, it originates from the world of basketball commentary.

In an New York Times interview with Jack Black it was explained that basketball commentator Marv Albert used to refer to strong defending from basketball players as 'tenacious dee', and that's where the band name sprung from.

Black explained further a few years later to Grantland how the idea for Tenacious D first went on the table.

He said: "We were deep into the Lakey lakes [LA Lakers] in the late 80s and early 90s, and we were jamming a lot at Kyle's apartment and watching basketball and jamming and getting high, and we were thinking 'what would be the best name for a band?'

"And for some reason we were laughing so hard at the idea of a band being called Tenacious D.

"[Marv Albert] would say 'playing some tenacious defense', I don't know if he ever said 'tenacious d', we might have made that abbreviation for him. I just think we were really stoned."

Of course this is all just a smokescreen to distract you from the truth that Jack Black was born with the birthmark 'Tenac' on his right buttcheek, and Kyle Gass has a birthmark saying 'ious D' on his left buttcheek.

The band name originated from basketball commentary (Josh Brasted/FilmMagic)

As shown in the entirely factual documentary Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, the band actually got its name when the two performers discovered each other's birthmarks and put their butts together to form the band name.

It was also very fortunate for our planet that they were able to defeat Satan by redirecting his lightning back at him, which is absolutely a thing that happened.

Speaking in the same interview that explained the basketball commentary origin of the band name, Jack Black said: "What’s important is we got a movie about the D made, and we got to make it the way we wanted."

By the way, if you're wondering what 'the greatest song in the world' that Tenacious D were singing about in 'Tribute' is, apparently the inspiration comes from the song 'One' by Metallica.

Black and Gass said they'd heard the song and tried in vain to write something better than it and ended up making a tune about how it's really hard to have a clear answer of what the greatest song in the world is, as the best they could do was a tribute.