Nearly 2,000 bands have flocked to Austin, Texas this week for the annual South By Southwest festival. As with the CMJ Music Marathon in New York,  we find ourselves amazed (and amused) by the names of the bands on the bill. Trend watchers: 2011 is the year of white and black, big and little, youth and death, saints and neon. What to conclude from this concordance? We’re not sure. For now, we present the first annual SXSW Band Name Awards, along with music samples from some of the winners. Name on!

1. Best TV/Movie Allusion

Runners Up: Jackie Chain; Jesse Dangerously; Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson*

Winner: Uncle Jesse

2. Most Offensive

Runners Up: Wheelchair Sports Camp*; Hungry Kids of Hungary; Mustard Pimp

Winner: Uncle Bad Touch (2-time FP Most Offensive Champion)

3. Best Defecation

Runners Up: Shit and Shine; Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!; Dr Krapula

Winner: Shit Robot*

4. Best Literary Allusion

Runners Up: Ivan & Alyosha*; Lolita No. 18; Eliza Doolittle

Winner: Mutiny on the Bounty

5. Worst Band Name

Runners Up: Matrimony; The Coolness; House of Broken Promises

Winner: A Great Big Pile of Leaves

6. Best Highbrow

Runners Up: Chateau Marmont; His Clancyness*; Harvard Bass

Winner: Descartes a Kant

7. Best Royal

Runners Up: Royal Bangs; Royal Forest; Royal Thunder

Winner: Royal Canoe

8. Best Dirty

Runners Up: Dirty Ghosts; Dirty Karma; The Dirty Guv’Nahs

Winner: Dirty Beaches*

9. Best Alliteration

Runners Up: Foxes in Fiction*; Birds & Batteries; Sick of Sarah

Winner: Trampled by Tigers

10. Best First Person Plural

Runners Up: We Are Defiance; We Are Enfant Terrible; We Are Hex

Winner: We Barbarians

11. Best White

Runners Up: White Arrows; White Denim; White Mystery; White White Sisters; White Wires; Whitechapel; Whitehorse

Winner: The White Eyes

12. Best Black

Runners Up: The Black Atlantic; Black Books; The Black Box Revelation; Black Cherry; Black Milk*; Blacklisted Individuals; The Pretty Black Chains

Winner: Black Gandhi

13. Best Young

Runners Up: Young Adults; Young Buffalo; Young Empires; Young Magic

Winner: Young London

14. Best Repetition

Runners Up: Man Man; Rah Rah; Smile Smile; Viva Viva

Winner: Gobble Gobble

15. Best Death

Runners Up: Bass Drum of Death; Death Letters; Freedom or Death; O’Death*

Winner: Death on Two Wheels

16. Best Sports

Runners Up: The Baseball Project; Basketball

Winner: Eastern Conference Champions*

17. Best Animal

Runners Up: Animals as Leader; Gabby Young and Other Animals; Sacred Animals

Winner: Slow Animal*

18. Best Gay

Runners Up: The Gay Blades; Gay for Johnny Depp; Gay Sportscasters

Winner: My! Gay! Husband!

19. Best Saint

Runners Up: Saint Motel; Saint Vitus

Winner: Sainthood Reps

20. Biggest Mouthful

Runners Up: For A Minor Reflection; Now, Now, Every Children*; Pulled Apart By Horses; Say “No!” To Architecture

Winner: Thee Oh Sees*

Keith Meatto is co-editor of Frontier Psychiatrist. Whenever he sees two or three words together he thinks: Band Name.