Why Are Greek Letters Given to the Names of Student Dormitories in the USA?
Many dormitories for boys and girls in the USA have names like Zeta, Phi, and Omega. But why Greek letters?
Why are there Greek letters in the names of the dormitories, which are called Fraternity for male students, and Sorority for female students, which form the basis of university life in the USA?
Fraternity and Sorority mean brotherhood, sisterhood, unity, association. Let us now dive into the historical origins of these student fraternities.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, high education in the United States was almost entirely dominated by Latin and Ancient Greek studies. Most prospective students were already required to know Latin in order to study at the university. Meanwhile, Ancient Greek was considered a more prestigious language than Latin. Because Latin education was given before university, if you wanted to learn Greek, you had to go to university. Knowing Greek meant you were a cultured, decent gentleman.
The only language more prestigious than ancient Greek was Hebrew. It was taught only to university students who majored in both Latin and Greek. This is why the official motto of Yale University, founded in 1702, is Hebrew. If you look at the university’s logo, the Hebrew version of the slogan is written on the pages of the book at the top and the Latin translation (Lux Et Veritas) is written below for those who do not speak Hebrew. It means “Light and Truth” in English.
Phi Beta Kappa community is the first society founded with Greek letters. In fact, it gets its name later. The Phi Beta Kappa Fellowship, an outstanding academic honor society founded at the College of William & Mary on exactly December 5, 1776, was originally called the “Society of Philosophers” in Latin (Societas Philosophiae). Long before the society was founded, there were also some institutions in the College of William & Mary that took their names from the Latin letters. This was a long-standing tradition. The earliest recorded Latin script community is the FHC (Flat Hat Club), founded in 1750. Former US president Thomas Jefferson was also a member of this club and graduated from the College of William & Mary in 1764. Another Latin alphabet society was founded in March 1773, with the abbreviation “PDA” (Please Don’t Ask). However, the Phi Beta Kappa community really wanted to appear prestigious and academic and preferred Ancient Greek instead of using Latin letters like other organizations. They chose a Greek slogan for themselves (Philosophía Bíou Kybernetes), meaning “Philosophy Is The Guide Of Life”. Later, the abbreviation of this slogan became the official name of the union.
As soon as the Phi Beta Kappa community named itself after the abbreviation of a Greek slogan, other communities began to imitate them. Some of the first American student societies are named: Chi Phi, Kappa Alpha, Sigma Phi, Delta Phi, Alpha Delta Phi, and Psi Upsilon. These fraternities were founded in the early 19th century and formed the basis of later fraternities and are still active nearly 200 years later. Only outstanding students were admitted to those early establishments, and they worked in secret. They were not in the foreground. By the end of the 19th century, fraternities began to become quite popular. At the same time, the influence of Classical Greek and Latin declined. Most Greek letter organizations stopped having Greek slogans but continued to use Greek letters in their names. They didn’t change their names, and then it became a tradition.
The first social organization for college women was the “Adelphean” society. It was founded in 1851 at Wesleyan College, a small, private women’s college in central Georgia. The original name of this community comes from the Greek word Adelphós, which means “sibling” and can be used to refer to a brother or sister.
In the beginning, these organizations for women were called “Women’s Fraternity”, not “Sorority”. However, a professor of Latin from Syracuse University named Dr. Frank Smalley objected to the word, stating that “frater” means brother in Latin. In fact, the ridiculous word like “Female Brotherhood” was popping up. For this reason, Dr. Smallley insisted that they should be called “sorority”, from the Latin soror, meaning sister. Thus, the name of the girls’ dormitories remained as sororities. Another girls’ society was formed at Syracuse University in 1874, called Gamma Phi Beta.
Even today, most institutions are subject to their own tests when accepting students, but these are equivalents of the originals. Most of them consist of a random arrangement of Greek letters that even the names do not make any sense. They have obviously forgotten why they named themselves in Greek letters.
