(FORTUNE Magazine) – If the Artist Formerly Known as Prince can do it, why can't a mutual fund? In fact, impetuous name changes aren't the exclusive dominion of rock stars: A total of 1,751 funds changed names during 2000, according to Lipper. Some of those changes were for legitimate reasons (like mergers), but a lot of others look decidedly more suspicious. Either they were hatched in a marketing department somewhere or--only slightly more charitably--they look like stunning reversals in strategy.

For instance, the CornerCap Growth fund suddenly became the CornerCap Small Cap Value fund. Portfolio manager Richard Bean claims that despite the former "growth" tag, the fund's investment style has always been value-oriented. "People were getting confused," he says. (How could they not?) Then there's the former MFS Equity Income, which has somehow morphed into MFS Value. "It just seems that the marketplace identifies more with 'value' than with 'equity income,'" concedes spokesman John Reilly, adding that the fund's strategy remains the same.

In a similar move, the Wasatch Mid-Cap fund became Wasatch Ultra Growth. Attempting to explain Wasatch's logic, spokesman Roy Jespersen says the fund was never actually a mid-cap fund. "And last year, we said, 'Okay, this isn't really ever going to be a mid-cap fund, so let's just change it to what it is.'" Better late than never.

Certainly the fund world lost one of its most colorful listings in 2000, when Gabelli Asset Management changed the name of its Global Interactive Couch Potato fund to the more accurate--and less eyebrow-raising--Gabelli Global Growth fund. Granted, one might reasonably question why rational investors would allocate their 401(k) to a portfolio named after lazy people. But a spokesman at Gabelli says the name mistakenly led people to think it was some kind of Internet fund--which seems logical given the term "interactive." As for the couch potato aspect, "I don't think it was turning people off at all," the spokesman says. "I think it was turning people on." Uh-huh. Happily, investors with a yen for the offbeat need not lose hope. Gabelli still offers its "Mighty Mites" fund, which invests in micro-caps.

Another standout in the colorful-to-mundane category is the renaming of the Fleming Fledgling fund, now called Fleming Small Cap Growth. Portfolio manager Chris Jones explains that although the "fledgling" moniker had a "slightly amusing quirkiness to it," a change was necessary to better reflect the fund's investment strategy. That's probably true, but one can't help wondering whether the fund's institutional investors were hesitant to fork over the required $1 million minimum to a fund that--according to Webster's--was named after a young flightless bird.

In fact, fund names have suddenly become a hot topic these days. In February the SEC announced a rule requiring that at least 80% of a mutual fund's assets be invested in the type of securities implied by its name. According to the SEC, of the 7,200 funds covered by the new rule, about 350 would not pass muster. Still, the rule is aimed only at those funds that opt to use descriptive names (for example, the ABC Latin America fund, or XYZ Biotech). Investment companies are still safe if they stick to nondescriptive terms.

That's good news for SunAmerica, which changed the name of its Small Company Growth fund to the more ambiguous (but decidedly hipper) New Century fund. Portfolio manager Donna Calder insists the change was necessary because the fund had ceased to focus exclusively on small-cap companies back in early 1999. Instead, says Calder, "What you're buying with the New Century fund is an aggressive-growth equity fund." So why then would SunAmerica remove the "growth" label from the fund altogether? "I think by saying 'New Century,' it's pretty obvious that it's not a value fund," insists Calder. Not obvious to us, but I guess we'll take her word for it.

Perhaps the grand prize for name-change innovation should go to the Rightime Social Awareness fund, which in 2000 became the Rightime OTC (as in "over-the-counter") fund. Repeated calls to the company were not returned, but given that the fund racked up losses of 7.8% in 1999 and 21.5% in 2000, one can only assume that social awareness was not producing a whole lot of positive awareness among investors.

To be sure, the fact that a fund has changed its name doesn't necessarily mean that its investing strategy has changed--or that its performance will be altered either for better or worse. But one thing is clear: You can't rely on a fund's name to give you any indication of what's really under the hood. As trite as it may sound, the only way to know for sure what you're getting is to read the prospectus thoroughly.