Don Huonot was formed by two school buddies in 1989. They were originally considering the name "Nirvana", but soon deemed it too corny. The name "Don Huonot" is a wordplay on the pronunciation of "Don Juan" and the similarity of the words "Juan" and "huono", the latter meaning "bad" or "lousy" in Finnish. ("Huonot" is the plural basic form.) For further wordplay, the name can also be broken down to "D on huono T", which translates to "D is/makes a lousy T". A song by that name appears on their first album.