Why add a J?

Why do people add a "J" in front of everything whenever they're talking about something Japanese? (i.e, J-guy, J-girl, J-pop, and so on) Do they do the same thing with Westerners? Like, A-girl/guy (American) or B-rock (British Rock, lol)

To abbreviate. Comparable to using "US" instead of "United States of America".

A Noelle,

You have a point. Japan is not the only country that starts with the letter J. I guess somoebody started that just to sound fashinable, pop, trendy....whatever it is......

Wondered that myself--I think it sounds kinda stupid personally, don't see why people can't just type it out or use the more sensible two letter abbreviation if they must. But like "." said...

Other such words used in society are J-pop and J-phone, so it may have come from words such as these (although I imagine the use of J has been around for much longer). I never use it, but it is easier to type J than Japanese.

So you think when people are speaking, they should call it Jp-pop? Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

I think "J-pop" was coined by the music/entertainment industry in Japan to distinguish Japanese pop music from "Western" pops, as "pops" as a music category came from the West. I don't know where the mobile phone company name "J-Phone" came from :)

Here on this forum, the topic IS Japan and people ARE talking about Japan and Japanese, and because "Japanese" is a relatively long word to spell out, so there has been a tendency to abbreviate - as the other abbreviation consisting of the first three letters of the word is definitely considered derogatory and is to be avoided (there seems to be some argument that this is a legitimate abbreviation widely used in UK and elsewhere, but I myself find it offensive too), so people started using "J-girl" and "J-boy" and such.

It's not that we go "A-girl" and "B-boy" for every country :)