The changing nature of Bill Haley’s music made the band name “Saddlemen” increasingly incongruous, and by the fall of 1952, the band had changed its name to Bill Haley and His Comets.  The idea for “the Comets” came from the common mispronunciation of Halley’s Comet that persists to this day.  (Edmond Halley’s surname actually rhymes with “Sally”; Halley concluded that three especially bright comets that had been observed over the preceding two centuries were actually the same object that appeared every 76 years and correctly predicted the return of the comet in 1758). 

(June 2013/1)