Quote Originally Posted by tinyJazz View Post
"seeker" is just a fan made term that's made its way into official usage sort of recently. :/
From TFwiki:
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Although the most well-known name for these Decepticons, the wide use of the term "Seeker" is still somewhat mysterious.

The first documented use of the term discovered by the Transformers fandom is from the 1984 J.C. Penney holiday catalog (sometimes called a "wishbook"). On the page which shows the Christmas season's available Transformers, the following entry is found: "Decepticon Silver Plane. Airplane with sensational F-15 styling scours the countryside searching for Autobots. When they're found, the Seekers set out to destroy them. Transforms to an exciting robot with hi-tech weapons and Decepticon logo." A photo of Starscream and Thundercracker is displayed.

Also on the same page in an ad for Soundwave, he's said to "send out messages to the Seekers and other Decepticons".

Another early use not discovered by the fandom until much later is from an ad by now defunct discount retail chain Zayre from November 1984, listed as "Decepticon Seeker" among "Autobot mini car", "Autobot car", "Decepticon Communicator" and "Autobot or Decepticon Leader". Depicted are Starscream and either Skywarp or Thundercracker.

These two seemingly unconnected instances back up a long-standing rumor that the term "Seeker" was used in some other early promotional materials, and has been handed down by Hasbro at some point. This would also explain why it's capitalized in both instances. Still, though, as there are only two known primary sources in which the term appears to this day, it seems strange that they could have inspired the entire fandom to use the term. "Seeker" was in wide use among internet Transfans even in the early 1990s, when the fandom was just getting off its feet. Did somebody in the days of the Transformers email list have a memory of the word from when they saw one of these catalogs at age 10 and start the trend? It is probably impossible to know at this point.

It is sometimes erroneously claimed that "Seeker" is derived from a line of dialog in the first episode of the G1 cartoon, in which these jets are referred to as "hunter-seekers". This line does not exist.

The term "hunter-seekers" is used in issue 17 of the US comic, "The Smelting Pool!". However, the Decepticons it is applied to are shown only in their flight modes, which look nothing like the "Seekers" that we are familiar with. In fact, the Conehead Seekers make their first appearance in this same issue, and their Cybertronian flight modes appear very similar to their Earth jet forms (if not completely identical), and completely different from the craft which are referred to as hunter-seekers. The only real connection between the hunter-seekers we were shown and the "Seekers" is that there's more than one of them and they fly.
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So technically speaking the origin of the term Seeker is from those obscure catalogues, but its usage among fans was probably coincidentally coined by online fans in the early days of the internet.