Unless someone has antedated the word recently, the earliest citation
for 'fanboy' as a word is 1919, so its use as an acronym is almost
certainly 20th century. The first grammatical citation that shows up in
Google Books is dated as 1951 _Learning to Write_, by Reed Smith et
alia, p. 398: "the chief co-ordinating conjunctions are sometimes called
the fanboy words" ("so" apparently has not been admitted to the club.)

There are earlier editions of the same work going back to at least 1937,
so it's conceivable the acronym could go back to the late 1930s,
assuming this bit wasn't added in a later edition, but I doubt it goes
back much before that.

Spruiell, William C wrote:
> Brett,
> 
>  
> 
> I don’t know where that mnemonic device originated, but I’ve found that when I use it in classes, I have to be very, very careful to warn students that they can’t leap to the conclusion that every instance of “for,” “so,” or   “yet” is a coordinating conjunction (they do anyway, but at least then I can say “I warned you about that”). 
> 
>  
> 
> I suspect it dates back to at least the nineteenth century, but I can’t cite any proof of that yet. Making words out of initials as a method of memorizing a list of terms is certainly an old trick. 
> 
>  
> 
> --- Bill Spruiell
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brett Reynolds
> Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 2:33 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: FANBOYS (was Equivalent expressions)
> Importance: Low
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> On 14-May-09, at 2:00 PM, Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think "for" in sentence initial position would create a
> 
> sentence fragment in traditional grammar since it is thought of as
> 
> coordinating rather than subordinating. In that sense, it acts like
> 
> "and", "but", "or", "nor", "so", and "yet", which often occur sentence
> 
> initially without being "errors".
> 
>  
> 
> Does anybody know where the FANBOYS mnemonic originated.
> 
>  
> 
> I blogged about FANBOYS a few years ago here and strangely, it is by far the most popular thing I've ever written:
> 
> <http://english-jack.blogspot.com/2006/07/myth-of-fanboys.html> 
> 
>  
> 
> But I've never been able to find who first came up with this particular group as the "coordinating conjunctions". The earliest I was able to find that included the same list was Writing with a Purpose by James McNab McCrimmon (1974), where he asserts, "the coordinating conjunctions are and, but, for, or, nor, yet, so." But this doesn't arrange them in the FANBOYS order.
> 
>  
> 
> I found a 1953 book by Brown (I've lost the title) which omits so: “The co-ordinating conjunctions are and, or, for, but and nor 
> 
>  
> 
> An Index to English: A Handbook of Current Usage and Style by Porter Gale Perrin (1939) says, "he coordinating conjunctions are: and but for nor (= and not) or yet".
> 
>  
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> Composition-Rhetoric by Stratton Brooks & Matietta Hubbard (1905) gives the principal coördinate conjunctions as and, but, or, nor, and for.
> 
>  
> 
> Best,
> 
> Brett
> 
>  
> 
> -----------------------
> 
> Brett Reynolds
> 
> English Language Centre
> 
> Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
> 
> Toronto, Ontario, Canada
> 
> [log in to unmask]
> 
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>  
> 
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