- Mel B “Scary Spice”
- Melanie Chisholm, Mel C “Sporty Spice”
- Emma Bunton “Baby Spice”
- Geri Halliwell “Ginger Spice”
- Victoria Beckham née Adams “Posh Spice”
The Spice Girls are a 1994 English pop girl group. Melanie Brown, commonly known as Mel B “Scary Spice”, Melanie Chisholm, Mel C “Sporty Spice”, Emma Bunton “Baby Spice”, Geri Halliwell “Ginger Spice”, and Victoria Beckham née Adams as “Posh Spice”.
Top of the Pops magazine gave each member of the group aliases in 1996, which the group and media adopted. The Spice Girls were pop culture celebrities of the 1990s, with their “girl power” mantra, and are seen as part of the Second British Invasion of the United States.
The strange source who gave the Spice Girls their famous nicknames
According to The Reddit, the Spice Girls were originally called Touch. This made the group feel monotonous, and they wanted to change that. “We felt like we had to fit into a mold,” Mel C told The Guardian. “And then we realized that we have very different personalities from each other and from all the previous female groups. We also realized that there was a lot of power in that.”
According to MarieClaire, the ladies eventually decided to change their names after changing management. Soon after, the nicknames came from an unexpected source: a journalist who interviewed the women. Mel B explained this on Rachael Ray’s show in 2017 “It was a lethargic journalist who couldn’t remember our names and said, ‘That one’s sporty, that one’s posh, and that one’s definitely scary because she’s really loud.’ Then it just stuck, and we were like, ‘Well, that’s fine with us!'”
The first Spice Girl to be given a name was Victoria Beckham.
Some of pop culture’s most iconic moments emerge organically, and the Spice Girls’ iconic nicknames were no exception. In fact, when they sat down to focus on the journalist’s brilliant idea, the names just flowed. While you might think that “Ginger Spice” or “Baby Spice” is the easier names to come up with, Victoria Beckham’s nickname was the first to come to mind.
“Posh was the first to come to mind because Victoria appears to be quite sophisticated. The rest was relatively simple because the characters of the girls were already quite strong, “Bustle spoke with Peter Loraine, the editor of the publication that inspired the nicknames. “The names stood out to us.”
It’s appropriate that Beckham’s was the first because it still sticks. Today, the 47-year-old owns her own fashion line and creates the most iconic little black dresses, which were her band uniform. She is Posh Spice all the way.