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The original Eddie was just this theatrical mask. You can kind of see it in the band photos on the first album and on the "Running Free" single picture sleeve . It's a face right next to the band's logo. It was connected to a pump that would spurt out various kinds of liquids, and it would drool all over Doug Sampson or Clive Burr or whoever was at the drums that time. People would also try to sling stuff into it.
Eddie's full name is Eddie The Head (Edward T.H. on the Live After Death cover) and it comes from the following old joke:
Eddie was born with no body and no arms and no legs. Just a head. But despite this slight birth defect his parents loved him very much cared for him and were always giving him all these presents like hats and blow things at parties and other cool stuff. So on his sixteenth birthday they run into a doctor that says "Hey, I can give Eddie a body" so the parents are going totally nuts because finally their kid can have a body and be like other normal people. They go home and are really excited and say "Have we got a surprise for you. It's the best present ever!" and Eddie says "Oh, no, not another fucking hat!"
They gave the name "Eddie" to that mask. By the time of them being signed to EMIThe Electric and Musical Industries Ltd formed in March 1931 from a merger of the UK Columbia Graphophone Company and the Gramophone Company/ HMV. In 1955, to replace the loss of its long-established licensing arrangements with RCA Victor and Columbia Rec Records, they got Derek Riggs to do the cover artwork. The first was the cover to the "Running Free" single, and you see that zombieA zombie is a kind of undead, or figuratively, a very apathetic person. Zombies in Vodun According to the tenets of Vodun (voodoo), a dead person can be revived by a houngan or mambo. After resurrection, it has no will of its own, but remains under the co in the back missing an arm (which somehow is in front of a guy who looks a lot like Bruce DickinsonBruce Dickinson (Paul Bruce Dickinson, born August 7, 1958 in Worksop Notts, England) is the lead singer in the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. Before this, he was singer in similar band Samson from 1980 until he joined Iron Maiden with their Number of the running away from that zombie). The band liked the zombie guy so much that the name Eddie was transferred over to the zombie when they lost that mask with the pump.