The album's title came from lead singer Sammy Hagar, who wanted to push the issue of censorship with naming Van Halen's album with a vulgarity, saying "That's when censorship was a big issue. I wanted to name the album just Fuck." Hagar eventually backed away from the outright vulgarity after he was (mis)informed by his friend, former world lightweight boxing champion Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, that the word "fuck" was an (b)acronym for the phrase "For unlawful carnal knowledge."