How Did Fairy Tail Get Its Name?
It began as “Fairy Tale.” The tail was a deliberate mystery.
The spelling is not a mistake. Mashima's 2002 pilot one-shot was called Fairy Tale, spelled the ordinary way. When the series was rebuilt for Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 2006, he changed one word: Tale became Tail, and he explained why in print at the time.
His reason was a question, whether fairies have tails at all, and he warned readers it might turn out to matter. The guild in the story carries the same riddle at its foundation, so the title functions as the series' first mystery, printed on all 63 covers.
TALE INTO TAIL
The documented trailThe one-shot's spelling
The 2002 pilot was titled Fairy Tale, the ordinary spelling, when it appeared in Magazine Fresh on September 3, 2002. The pun arrived with the serialization.
Mashima's explanation
In notes printed with the first volume, Mashima explained the change: the title became Tail in reference to the tail of a fairy, and whether fairies even have tails, he wrote, may or may not prove to be a pivotal point.
The question inside the story
The guild's own lore keeps the question open on purpose: “Do fairies have tails?” is bound up with the guild's founding mystery, the riddle Mavis's generation left behind. The title is the series' first unanswered question, asked on the cover of every volume.