Most of the BTS members use different stage names than their original names. But Jungkook and Jimin use their own names rather than a separate stage name. Have you ever wondered how it developed this way?
For example, the real name of RM is Kim Nam-joon. In the early years of BTS, he was using “Rap Monster “, and he shortened it to RM when he reached to a certain age. He felt that Rap Monster was not mature enough.
Suga‘s real name is Min Yoon-gi. Suga played basketball in the “Shooting Guard” position in the past. His stage name comes from the Korean phrase 슈팅 가드 for “Shooting Guard”. The Latin representation of the pronunciation of this phrase in Korean is “ Syuting Gadeu “. What we call Suga is written in Korean as 슈가 , the exact equivalent of this in Latin letters is “ Syu Ga “. The Korean first syllables of each word in Syuting Gadeu are 슈가 (Syu-Ga) from 슈 (Syu) and 가 (Ga). We call it SUGA for short.
J-Hope‘s real name is Jung Ho-seok. He chose this name because he wanted to bring hope for his fans.
The real name of V is Kim Tae-Hyung. The name V means Victory. Other stage names were suggested to him, but because he liked the meaning of the word victory, he adopted the stage name V.
Jin‘s real name is Kim Seok-jin. We can say that he actually found the middle ground. He neither used his own name Seok-jin, nor did he use a stage name that is completely different from his name [in Korea, first surname then first name is told, by the way]. Just “Jin”, isn’t it a very clear choice?
Jimin ‘s real name is Park Jimin. So his stage name and his real name are the same. Jungkook ‘s real name is Jeon Jungkook, so his stage name and real name are the same, too.
You see below the photo from a live TV program on MNET on July 22, 2015, where Jimin and Jungkook explained why they did not have separate stage names.
Jimin stated that he was actually given a stage name. This name was “G-Baby“. Although Jimin was at a young age at that time, he was clever and mature enough to decline this weird stage name. He said that I will use my own name. What an insightful act!
Since Jungkook came from the city of Busan, he was asked to be named “Seagull” because of the seagull (yes, the sea bird), which is the symbol of that city. Also they were thinking that Jungkook was looking kinda a seagull by apperance [no way! come on guys!]. Jungkook didn’t like how he was interpreted as “Sea girl” when he mispronounced Seagull. He said that I would use my own name, he insisted for it, and he got what he wanted; his own name!.
Interesting, isn’t it?