I'm not really adding anything new, but I happen to be writing an essay at the moment, and part of it sort of applies to this topic.
"Buffy fans, though it's not unusual among cult interest groups, tend to feel the need to "convert" non Buffy fans. Buffy fans are affectionately possessive about their show, and tend to introduce it to people they feel "deserve it." I know I do. You know what makes it hard? Not just that the lead character's name is Buffy. Not just that she's a Vampire Slayer. But that the show is called "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer."
Undeniably, snobbery about the name (and the misleadingly simple premise it suggests) eventually cost the show audience share, awards and the credibility it desperately deserved. That became sadly evident when The Body, a monumental piece of television that topped nearly every critics' top ten for the year, wasn't even considered for an Emmy. From the start, the network reportedly put pressure on Whedon to use a different title. ("Slayer" and "Buffy" were both acceptable to them, just not simultaneously...) The name was already chained to a failed movie, and aside from the humour inherent in it, it's a campy title, not at all indicative of the grim tone the show quickly came to revel in. Joss Whedon is not a stupid man, nor was he a newcomer to the machinations of Hollywood. His fledgling show was a season half timer: the final shot in Prophecy Girl could very easily have been the final shot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He knew that he was fighting for a title that would severely restrict the shows potential audience, when the odds were stacked against even it's short term survival anyway. Why make such an enormous gamble? Whedon has implied that the name was intended to be an obstacle; that anybody unwilling to watch a show purely based on the name wasn't "invited to the party". The idea suggests either a rather staggering arrogance on the part of a man who once promised an "all nude, all-gay Buffy" (Along with an "18 million dollar Zeppelin fight over Neptune") or a more deliberate motive. What Whedon was doing, in effect, was screening out people who wouldn't have come to the show with an open mind. The world he'd created was his world, and by keeping the title, he was ensuring that the people who came straight into it were prepared to embrace every single aspect of it. As a consequence, most Buffy fans came to the show because they were introduced to it by somebody else, and many were indeed initially deterred by the name. I discovered Buffy through the monthly rave reviews of tv magazines, and most fans can tell you something similar. Rather than syndication to stations like the BBC, who clearly had no idea what they were dealing with, or it's nice, but schizophrenic marketing, word-of-mouth, and unprecedented support from the internet built Buffy. Whedon has always said that Buffy Summers was designed to be an Icon. What Whedon has not explicitly said is that he also designed the fanbase, from the start, to be a Cult."