Why Every K-pop Group Gives Its Fans a Name, From ARMY to FOHA

AHOF's fans have a name that works like a mirror: FOHA, the group's name spelled backwards, announced on Weverse on Sept. 9, 2025, according to K-Crush's fandom name glossary. A fandom name is the official title a K-pop group gives its fanbase, a shared identity that TX Donut describes as a promise of support running between the artists and their fans.

The reversed spelling sums up the whole custom. K-Crush says FOHA was chosen to show that the bond goes both ways, and its glossary counts 373 official fandom names, each with its own meaning and backstory.

What it means

A fandom name is the label for a group's fans as a collective. TX Donut's list gives the best-known examples:

BTS fans are ARMY.

BLACKPINK fans are BLINK.

TWICE fans are ONCE.

Stray Kids fans are STAY.

SEVENTEEN fans are CARAT.

TXT fans are MOA.

Monsta X fans are MONBEBE.

Nolae sets out the basic rule: every K-pop artist and group has a fandom, and that fandom normally has an official name. The name rarely arrives alone. Daebak says a typical fandom also gets a representative color and an official light stick design, and often membership programs and exclusive content platforms too.

The names also work as plurals and as a label for one person. Daebak writes that "Stays" support Stray Kids and that NCTzens follow NCT and its sub-units NCT 127, NCT Dream and WayV. Some fandoms also have a nickname: Koreaboo says GOT7's iGOT7 shortens in Korean to "AhGaSe," which also means "baby bird," the shape of the group's light stick.

In these sources the tone is affectionate. Koreaboo notes that Monsta X's MONBEBE is French for "my baby," and that Red Velvet's ReVeluv combines "Red Velvet" and "luv." In other words, the group is giving its fans a pet name.

Where it came from

To be clear: none of the sources gathered for this entry dates the first K-pop fandom name or credits anyone with starting the custom. What they do document is how names get made, and the fan culture that grew up around them.

The V&A's history of K-pop fandom starts with Seo Taiji and Boys, whose 1992 formation the museum calls the forerunner of K-pop. Until the late 1990s the audience was mostly domestic, it says. After that, fan communities started appearing across East and Southeast Asia, and being an international fan of H.O.T, S.E.S, g.o.d, TVXQ, Girls Generation or 2NE1 meant belonging to a small subculture. The museum dates the global breakout of groups including BTS, BLACKPINK, EXO and TWICE to the mid-2010s.

Who picks the name? TX Donut says it is usually the group or its agency, sometimes with fan input, and agencies sometimes run contests or ask fans for suggestions. Daebak says BTS came up with ARMY themselves. According to Koreaboo, fans often try to guess the name, or pitch their own, before the official reveal.

The naming formulas fall into a few families, which TX Donut lists as wordplay on the group's name, a concept or color theme, and the relationship between artists and fans. Some examples:

Blends: Koreaboo says BLINK simply combines "Black" and "Pink," the same way the group's own name does.

Backronyms: Koreaboo says ARMY stands for "Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth," a companion to BTS's Korean name, Bangtan Sonyeondan, or "Bulletproof Boyscouts." It also says TXT's M.O.A stands for "Moments of Alwaysness."

Song tributes: Koreaboo says SEVENTEEN named its fans "carats" after the pre-debut song "Shining Diamond," because the fans are the carats that make the group shine.

New-word puns: K-Crush says AB6IX's ABNEW mixes the group's name with "new," sounds like "avenue," and treats the fans as a sixth member walking a new road with the five.

Relationship names: K-Crush says A.C.E's Choice stands for fans and group choosing each other, and that ALLDAY PROJECT's DAY ONE honors the fans who were there from the first day.

Why it's having a moment

There is no single viral spike in the research. The term stays in use because new groups keep coining names, as AHOF did with FOHA, and because the name is the banner fans organize under.

TX Donut says fandoms vote in large numbers on music shows and award programs, coordinate across time zones and run streaming campaigns for new releases. Daebak adds bulk album buying to push chart positions, and Wikipedia counts promotions, merchandise production and voting for awards such as MAMA among the ways fans help a group succeed. The scale is large: the V&A says the #KpopTwitter hashtag reached 7.8 billion tweets in 2021.

How to use it (and how not to)

Some lines a fan might actually say:

"Are you a STAY or a MOA?"

"Calling all ONCEs: the stream party starts at 8."

"Every CARAT in my section had a light stick."

The etiquette is simple. Use the name the group or agency officially announced, with its official spelling, and remember that a name fans guessed is not official until the reveal, a guessing game Koreaboo describes. The name also brings you into a community with its own norms. At concerts, MN K-pop Connect advises respecting personal space, not holding signs up for long stretches where they block other fans, and not filming with your phone held over your head the whole show.