The trio—composed of lead vocalist Morten Harket; guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (Pål Waaktaar until his marriage in 1994); and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen, also known as "Mags"—formed in 1982 and left Norway for London in order to make a career in the music business. They chose the studio of musician, producer, and soon-to-be-manager John Ratcliff because it had a Space Invaders machine. John Ratcliff introduced them to his manager, Terry Slater, and after a few meetings, a-ha enlisted Ratcliff as manager as well. Slater and Ratcliff formed T.J. Management. Ratcliff dealt with technical and musical aspects, and Slater acted as the group's international business manager and as liaison to Warner Brothers's head office in Los Angeles.
The origin of the name "a-ha" comes from a title that Paul contemplated giving to a song. The song used the words "a-ha" and "ahem". Morten was looking through Paul's notebook and came across the name "a-ha". He liked it and said, "That's a great name. That's what we should call ourselves". After checking dictionaries in several languages, they found out that a-ha was an international way of expressing recognition, with positive connotations. It was short, easy to say, and unusual.
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