How did the Pink Ladies get their name in Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies?

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, the Paramount+ original that serves as a prequel to the iconic film–starring John Travolta as Danny Zuko and Olivia Newton-John as Sandy Olsson–is an origin story for the loveable girl gang of misfits and outcasts. However, this series is about its founding members not the group we know from Grease.

Have you ever wondered how the Pink Ladies came to be and how they got their name? The first two episodes of the show reveal that story starting with “We’re Gonna Rule the School” which saw our four girls–Jane, Nancy, Olivia, and Cynthia–leaning into their “bad reputations.”

Jane, classified as a good girl until word gets around that she and her boyfriend Buddy were intimate, pushes back against the idea that she should be shamed and he should be praised for their acts done behind a closed car door. Nancy simply wants to design clothes in peace and dream of a life in fashion away from Rydell and the boys she has no interest in which is treated as odd.

Olivia’s known as the girl who came onto a teacher. She’s carrying the weight of the inappropriate bond they forged while he gets to pretend he was entirely innocent and that his interest in her was purely academic. And Cynthia wanted to run with the T-Birds officially but their ideas about gender are limited and they just don’t see a girl being among their ranks.

Going against social norms landed the quartet in the Rydell Review with a specific moniker and accusation lodged against them. It led to the creation of their gang’s name.

How did the Pink Ladies get their name in Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies?

In the school newspaper, the girls were called communists, specifically “pinkos” which is a pejorative and meant to other anyone deemed counter of the culture even if they weren’t aligned or sympathetic to the communist party.

By the end of “Too Pure to Be Pink,” after Nancy spent the episode running through names and jacket prototypes that got rejected by her friends, the quartet landed on their name. They’d been mocking what had been written about them and how they’re being perceived. Cynthia jokingly reminded them that they’re not supposed to be girls, they’re supposed to be ladies. Nancy realized that could be a jacket and offered up “The Pink Ladies,” the rest was history.

Stay tuned to Hidden Remote for more Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. New episodes release Thursdays on Paramount+.