MUSICIAN

Stuart Sutcliffe

1940 - 1962

Photo of Stuart Sutcliffe

Icon of person Stuart Sutcliffe

Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962) was a British painter and musician from Edinburgh, Scotland, best known as the original bass guitarist of the Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue his career as a painter, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art. Sutcliffe and John Lennon are credited with inventing the name "Beetles" (sic), as they both liked Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets. They also had a fascination with group names with double meanings (as Crickets, for example, the word referring to both an insect and a sport), so Lennon then came up with "The Beatles", from the word beat (though Lennon's original spelling was "Beatals"). Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Stuart Sutcliffe is the 33rd most popular musician (up from 211th in 2019), the 238th most popular biography from United Kingdom (up from 787th in 2019) and the 15th most popular British Musician.

Stuart Sutcliffe was a founding member of the Beatles. He played bass guitar and was one of the original members of the band. He was a good friend of John Lennon and was the only member of the Beatles to be born outside of the United Kingdom. He left the band in 1961 to pursue a career as an artist.

Memorability Metrics

Loading...

Page views of Stuart Sutcliffe by language

Loading...

Among MUSICIANS

Among musicians, Stuart Sutcliffe ranks 33 out of 3,175Before him are Leopold Mozart, Amir Khusrow, Giuseppe Tartini, Ringo Starr, Brian May, and Sting. After him are Joe Jackson, Ray Charles, André Rieu, Isaac Albéniz, Maurice Gibb, and Arthur Rubinstein.

Most Popular Musicians in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1940, Stuart Sutcliffe ranks 19Before him are Zodiac Killer, Constantine II of Greece, Annie Ernaux, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Qaboos bin Said al Said, and Ringo Starr. After him are Gao Xingjian, Raul Julia, Michael Gambon, J. M. G. Le Clézio, J. M. Coetzee, and Burhanuddin Rabbani. Among people deceased in 1962, Stuart Sutcliffe ranks 8Before him are Eleanor Roosevelt, Niels Bohr, Hermann Hesse, Adolf Eichmann, William Faulkner, and Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. After him are Karen Blixen, Lucky Luciano, Arthur Compton, Georges Bataille, Princess Marie Bonaparte, and Gaston Bachelard.

Others Born in 1940

Go to all Rankings

Others Deceased in 1962

Go to all Rankings

In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, Stuart Sutcliffe ranks 238 out of 8,785Before him are Æthelstan (895), John Wycliffe (1324), Brian May (1947), Sting (1951), Robert Owen (1771), and Clementine Churchill (1885). After him are Duns Scotus (1265), J. K. Rowling (1965), James Mason (1909), Bobby Charlton (1937), Boudica (33), and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759).

Among MUSICIANS In United Kingdom

Among musicians born in United Kingdom, Stuart Sutcliffe ranks 15Before him are George Harrison (1943), Eric Clapton (1945), Cat Stevens (1948), Ringo Starr (1940), Brian May (1947), and Sting (1951). After him are David Gilmour (1946), Roger Waters (1943), Keith Richards (1943), Syd Barrett (1946), Jimmy Page (1944), and Ritchie Blackmore (1945).