Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962), was a Scottish painter and musician better known as the original bass guitarist of the English rock band 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", as they both liked Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets. They also had a fascination of group names with double meanings (as Crickets, for example, the word refers to both an insect as well as a sport), so John then came up with "The Beatles", from the word beat (though John's original spelling of the pun was "Beatals"). As a member of the group when it was a five-piece band, Sutcliffe is one of several people sometimes referr