Wasp Fact — November 2, 2026

Today's Fact

Five heroes, one captured god of mischief — and the smallest person in the room supplied the name that stuck for sixty years.

THE WASP NAMED THE AVENGERS — EARTH'S MIGHTIEST TEAM GOT ITS NAME FROM JANET VAN DYNE!

The Featured Fact

In Avengers Vol. 1 #1 (September 1963), five heroes who had never shared a mission — Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp — converged on a fight Loki had engineered and won it together. Standing in the afterglow, it was Janet van Dyne who proposed they stay a team, and Janet who supplied the name they would fight under: the Avengers.

The suggestion fits the woman who made it. Janet had become the Wasp to avenge her father, Dr. Vernon van Dyne, murdered by an alien creature in Tales to Astonish Vol. 1 #44 (1963). A heroine whose own career began as an act of vengeance reached, instinctively, for a name built on the same word — and aimed it outward, at every wrong the new team would answer for.

Credit rarely follows the panel. The founders are usually listed as a bloc, and the naming line is treated as set dressing, yet Marvel's own character histories state it plainly: Janet coined the name. Before she chaired the team, before the decades of costumes and crises, the Wasp's first gift to the Avengers was their identity.

Why It's Obscure

Everyone can list the founders. Almost nobody can tell you which founder did the naming.

June 1963

A name with a motive — Janet debuts in Tales to Astonish #44 as a grieving daughter; Hank Pym gives her Pym Particles, wings and a sting so she can avenge her father.

Sept 1963

The naming panel — Avengers #1 closes its first adventure with the five heroes agreeing to unite — and the record credits Janet's suggestion for the word 'Avengers' itself.

The roster

Smallest founder, longest shadow — Of the five founders, Janet is the one whose contribution was verbal rather than physical: no hammer, no armour, no gamma — just the right word at the right moment.

Official word

Marvel says so itself — Marvel's published history of Janet states that at the end of that first installment, Janet gave the team its name — a credit line hiding in plain sight for decades.

Gallery

Comic art of Janet van Dyne in flight, plus the cover of the issue where she did the naming.

Wasp Janet van Dyne flying with translucent wings arms raised comic art — **The namer, airborne** — Janet van Dyne in her black-and-gold colours, wings spread: the founder who contributed the team's name before its second adventure.

Wasp firing sting blasts with Ultron looming behind painted art — **Sting first, credit later** — painted art of Janet mid-blast, a reminder that the heroine who named the Avengers was a frontline fighter from the very first roster.

Avengers number 1 1963 comic cover with the founding team — **The first issue** — Avengers #1 (1963), the book that ends with five strangers becoming a team — under the name the Wasp proposed.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Meet Janet Van Dyne, the Original Wasp — Marvel.comMarvel's own history states that at the end of AVENGERS (1963) #1, Janet gave the team its name.
Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) In Comics — Marvel.comMarvel's character profile: 'Van Dyne herself coined their team name: The Avengers.'
15 Things You Didn't Know About the Wasp — Screen RantIndependent summary confirming the Wasp recommended forming the team and suggested the name Avengers in 1963.