What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. - Shakespeare

JYP Entertainment recently revealed the name of the its new female duo featuring 'Kpop Star' winner Park Ji Min as '15&' (pronounced Fifteen And). At first look, it feels more like the name of a New York City restaurant than a K-pop group but more than that, it's another English name as noted in the teaser video which spells it out for the viewer. It's no secret that Korean music groups love using English words and acronyms for their names. Look around and you'll see Wonder Girls and miss A, Big Bang and BEAST, there's also some After School and SECRET mixed in as well. At least today most of the group names make some kind of sense but back in the day some of the names were quite interesting to say the least and others were just downright weird.

On today's Way Back Wednesday, we'll revisit some of the best and not-so-best English group names from way back when. It's virtually impossible to list all the cool and weird names in one article so we'll just go with a few that most people know and hopefully some that are new to you. As with many things in life, when it comes to English K-pop group names, they certainly don't make'em like they used to.

BEST - My Top 5 (in no particular order)

S#arp

Maybe not the strongest contender here but I always liked this name. It denoted musicality, it was fun and quirky using the sharp sign, and it was memorable. That's what a good band name should be. Easy to remember and kind of encapsulate what that group is in a nutshell. I suppose that's my problem with some of today's K-pop group names and their totally mind bending meanings (think U-Kiss and MBLAQ).

Young Turks Club

When I wrote about the group a few months ago, one question that was asked was what the deal with their name was. The term "Young Turk" comes from a Turkish reformist party in the early 1900's who wanted to reform the rule of the Ottoman Empire. From there, the term has come to encompass groups within a larger organization trying to gain power. You can look at them as a rebel movement or anti-establishment which is what the group's name was supposed to signify. I like the name as it conveys that teen angst rebel without a cause thing which was the audience that they were trying to reach.

Roo'Ra - Roots of Reggae

This name actually makes a little bit of sense because the group did employ a rich reggae sound and made some of the biggest songs of the mid 1990's using a form of music that was rare not only in Korea but around the world. I'm guessing at the time that most of the members couldn't find Jamaica on a map but that's OK because they made some amazing music and helped plant the seed of reggae actually making them the roots of reggae in K-pop. Go figure.

R.ef - Rave Effect

The name was an exact description of their music. R.ef was about high-powered, dance pop music and their name said it all. They were one of the true old school groups debuting in 1995 and were one of the first artists to introduce this type of music to Korea. I will say that the name thing took a turn for the worse when they wanted to reinvent themselves as Ruff Eazy Flava which just didn't work out at all. They recently made a comeback.

Solid

What a cool name. It just sounds cool when you say it. Solid. It's got all the meanings of being solid, you know, secure and strong, plus meaning something that is cool and legit. It was also a great name to represent a group of guys from the States who brought a new R&B sounds to Korea and blazed trails for many R&B and hip hop artists but also blazed trails for foreign born Koreans to make their way into the K-pop market. One of my favorite groups with one of my favorite names.

My Not So Top 5

H.O.T - High-Five of Teenager

There was an episode of the show 'Come to Play' a few years ago when members of the original idol groups were featured and Son Ho Young mentioned that when fellow g.o.d member Park Joon Hyung heard what H.O.T stood for, his initial reaction was along the lines of, "WHAT?!" That's basically what my friends and I thought for a long time because High-Five of Teenager makes absolutely no sense. There were also the casual fans who kept referring to them as the word 'hot' and not by the acronym. The name was weird, although I understand what Lee Soo Man was trying to get across, but it really didn't matter as they dominated K-pop for years and their name is now synonymous with being the catalyst of the idol phenomenon.

Side note: I'm not including g.o.d here but it's a bit hypocritical that Park Joon Hyung would mock H.O.T's name when g.o.d's name (Groove Over Dose) is also incorrect. Overdose is one word and the 'D' doesn't require its own place in an acronym.

UN - United N-generation

I don't get it. Maybe they wanted to use the acronym UN (like the organization) and just forced a meaning to it. Maybe they're creating their own term like Generation X. I don't know. The pop duo made some decent music but the name makes no sense to me.

Clon

Is the name supposed to mean 'clone'? Even if it is, does that make it any more sense? The group certainly delivered some of the coolest dance songs in K-pop but the name just never got anywhere with me. Not sure what they were trying to get across and maybe that's for the better.

Untitle

It's not that I don't like the name or find it weird, it's that the name craves the letter "D". If the name were Untitled, I get it. You don't have a name, you don't want to define yourself by labeling your group, you're a work in progress. OK, it's a little esoteric but I'm all for it. Then you look at Untitle and the name is just sitting there waiting for someone to finish it but it'll never happen. So unsatisfying is that name that I had to put it in this part of the list.

Fin.K.L - Fine Killing Liberty

The mother of all weirdo K-pop acronymed names. Fin.K.L's Wikipedia entry states the following:

"Their name stands for Fin Killing Liberty, and was intended to mean that the group stood against "the oppression of all freedom" (fin means "ending" in French). The group's name was selected by a poll of young people by the record company before the group's inception. This is the reason for the lack of clear meaning in Fin.K.L's English name, for the Korean name (??) was selected first."

I don't know who edited their entry but, nice try. Don't get me wrong, Fin.K.L is one of my all-time favorites and I can be counted as one of their many drooling fanboys but there is no way to fully make sense of their name as you can't force an explanation for that which cannot be explained.



This list is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more fun, kooky, and downright odd K-pop group names out there. Feel free to list your own and maybe we'll revisit this topic again in the future.