In 1998 a new film by Sam Raimi – called “A Simple Plan” – was released and in a hurry to get a name for their new band (that was just about to play a show), the guys decided to drop the “A” and call themselves “Simple Plan”.
“The guys were like “we need a band name, we’re playing a show!” and the producer guy had just been watching the movie ‘A Simple Plan’, and he was like “you guys should try that name”, so they dropped the ‘A’ and just went with Simple Plan, and we ended up keeping the name. When we got signed we were wondering if we were keeping that name or not, and you know what, it is kinda Simple Plan because we get to do what we’ve always wanted to do for a living.”
– David Desrosiers –
Another explanaition behind the name is that the guys claim, that they never wanted to be stucked in some office, but they wanted to play in a band and discover the world. And that was a simple plan for them.
Little curiosity: when the band was trying to come up with ideas for their band name, Mark Hoppus (Blink 182) suggested the name “one-legged-duck”. The guys rejected it at once.