wannabe

Meanings

1. Someone who wishes to be someone or do something, but lacks the qualifications or talent; an overeager amateur; an aspirant.
2. Someone who wishes to be part of, or to assimilate to, a majority group of which they are not a member.

Etymology

Written form of a reduction of want to be, analyzable as wanna + be. Wannabe can be considered a conversion, category change, or functional shift. While occasionally appearing in print, usually as a less reduced phrase, the popularity of the word took off in the mid-1980s following the Madonna wannabe fashion trend: “wannabe”, in Google Books Ngram Viewer.