You know you're really famous when your Navy of fans has an official nickname

If on a winter's night this coming May you are woken by what feels like a minor earthquake, and if on the evening breeze wafts the faint echo of a collective preteen scream (or quite possibly the extremely loud roar of a collective preteen scream, depending on where you live), do not be alarmed.

It's just the Beliebers.

Fans of Justin Bieber, for anyone who might have been living in media-free solitary confinement for the past decade, like to call themselves Beliebers. It sounds quite sweet, but when they gather en masse in a stadium it becomes somewhat more terrifying.

Not all Justin's fans are preteens, incidentally. Grown women in my vicinity squealed when it was announced that he would tour South Africa.

There's no accounting for taste (I confess to once having had a slight crush on Macaulay Culkin, which not everyone understood) and Justin must have true talent - surely millions of preteens would not worship him if he did not?

Justin sounds like one of those names, like Ridge or Thorne, that was invented by the writer of a soap opera, but it goes way back.

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Blame the French, who took the ancient Roman name Iustinus and made it Justin, then shipped it over to England, from whence it spread like a permissive new religion.

The original Iustinus was derived from the Latin iustus, which meant righteous, law-abiding and true, sometimes even perfect. Who wouldn't have millions of fans with a name like that?

Two Byzantine emperors were called Justin. Before them came Justin Martyr, a Christian philosopher who was beheaded in Rome.

All this I gleaned from Behindthename.com, which also has an addictive section that gives the popularity of names in various countries. Justin (the name) is not huge in Austria or Belgium, but in France and the US it is right up there with Jules and Mason.

But back to the Beliebers. True worshippers of famous singers (I was going to say pop stars but that would date me) have always liked to pledge their allegiance by giving themselves a group name. The Grateful Dead spawned Deadheads and Led Zeppelin gave birth to Zepheads.

If you have time on your hands and are interested in this topic, read Wikipedia's list of fandom nicknames. Most are fairly unimaginative (Katy Perry's KatyCats; Taylor Swift's Swifties; Eminem's Stans) but some are inspired.

I like Ellie Goulding's club of Gouldiggers, Green Day's Idiots, Phish's Phans and Rihanna's Navy. Also, although it's a bit macabre, fans of alternative rock band The Killers show some gumption by calling themselves The Victims.

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Going further back, the Beatles had their Beatlemaniacs, who might have drowned out Beliebers in a screaming match, if Beliebers (or indeed Bieber) had been around at the time.

Incidentally, a smaller group of dedicated Beatlemaniacs earned themselves the title Apple Scruffs (coined by George Harrison) because instead of taking a shower or changing their clothes occasionally they spent all their time hanging around outside the Apple Corps building, hoping to see their idols.

Even more incidentally, the legal battles between Apple Corps and that company that makes things beginning with an "i" are the stuff of which courtroom dramas are made. One of the earlier lawsuits was settled when Apple Computers promised to stay out of the music business. Insert tears-of-joy emoticon here.

Apple Inc finally bought all the trademarks belonging to Apple Corps. Apple Corps did quite well out of this deal. Lawyers went into mourning.

Fandom is a lucrative business for those who reap the benefits. Possibly it makes all the screaming bearable.

E-mail your observations on words and language to Sue de Groot on degroots@sundaytimes.co.za or follow her on Twitter: @deGrootS1