He uses the alias David Bowie because David Jones sounded too much like Davy Jones ( of The Monkees ) . He took the name Bowie from Jim Bowie , who invented the Bowie knife . Dissatisfied with his stage name as Davy ( and Davie ) Jones , which in the mid-1960s invited confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees , Bowie re-named himself after the 19th century American frontiersman Jim Bowie and the knife he had popularized .