At first they were known under the names Avenger and Vortex before settling on Tankard in 1983. The band chose their name after looking through a dictionary and seeing a word defined as "beer mug."In the early days of the band, Gerre used to play bass and Frank Thorwarth was the singer. Later, they switched their roles.In 1994, the band created a side-project called Tankwart (German for "gas station attendant") with metal/punk covers of schlager and other German-language songs.