<p>The reason people confuse Penn and Penn State is that, outside of Pennsylvania and the northeast, most people have never heard of Penn. Almost everyone has heard of Penn State, and not just because of the Jerry Sandusky scandal; it’s Penn State football, of course.</p>
<p>Never having heard of Penn (or perhaps having heard of it once or twice, then promptly forgotten about it), most Midwesterners, when they hear someone refer to “Penn,” would just naturally assume the person is referring to the school they have heard of, Penn State. It’s not that people hear “Penn State” and think “Penn”; I suspect that error almost never happens. No, the confusion is unidirectional; when people hear mention of a school they’ve never heard of (Penn) they tend to confuse it with a similarly-named school they have heard of (Penn State).</p>
<p>Slightly off topic, but does anyone know what a “Hoya” is? I toured Georgetown twice with my kids, roughly four years apart, and we heard different explanations on each tour. One was something about a Latin cheer led by a Classics professor during a football game. The other referred to some historical event during the Civil War.</p>
<p>Similarly, what are “Hoosiers” and “Tar Heels”?</p>
<p>“Hoya” is derived from a Greek acronym meaning “loses first weekend of the tournament.” And no one alive today knows what a Tar Heel is – just that the helmets are ugly.</p>
<p>The names “Hoosiers” and “Tar Heels” both stem from the states’ histories. Same reasons for the Sooners, Buckeyes, Hawkeyes, Beavers and lots of other state school mascots.</p>
<p>I lived in Berkeley for 15 years and we called the school Cal or “the campus”. Occasionally we would say a kid is staying home to go to Berkeley. UCD was called Davis but UCSB and UCLA got initials.</p>
<p>MizzBee, over here in Sacramento, we say “Berkeley” unless the context is sports, in which case it’s “Cal.”</p>
<p>My alma mater is University of Washington (Seattle), which we called “UDub” or “The U.” Cross-state rival Washington State University was “Wazzu.”</p>
<p>My Stanford-graduate brother calls his alma mater “The Farm.”</p>
<p>Dkil, you forgot the “Jayhawks,” which I think dates back to the Kansas-Nebraska War and “Bloody Kansas” just before the outbreak of the Civil War.</p>
<p>Off topic a bit; one of the most interesting college mascot names, in my opinion, was the Hurons at one of the Michigan schools. I don’t think the school got any complaints from the Indian tribe but the school changed the name anyway several years ago.</p>
<p>Eastern Michigan U was the Hurons…if anybody complained, they could have said “We named ourselves after the lake, not the tribe.” That NFL team in DC could avoid a lot of heat if they just adopted the redskin potato or redskin peanut as their mascot.</p>
<p>I think Georgetown’s 'What rocks" refers to their made-from-stone buildings, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>I’m not sure anyone asked the tribe, who in any event don’t generally self-identify as “Huron” but rather as Wyandot or Wendat–“Huron” being, most likely, what they were called by some other people, probably a rival or enemy tribe. In many cases such exonyms themselves have a pejorative connotation. </p>
<p>The Wendat population, centered around Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada, was decimated by smallpox and other European diseases in the 17th century, then further reduced by inter-tribal conflicts sparked by European settlement of the eastern parts of North America which drove other indigenous groups off their land and into conflict with the Wendat. The eviscerated remnant Wendat people were ultimately relocated to Quebec.</p>
<p>A splinter group calling themselves the Wyandot established themselves briefly in southeastern Michigan and northwestern Ohio, but were forcibly relocated to Kansas and Oklahoma by the mid-19th century.</p>
<p>Given this appallingly shabby history of European-American treatment of the Wendat/Wyandot, I should think Eastern Michigan University would find it somewhat embarrassing to appropriate the name “Hurons” whether or not the Wendat/Wyandot people voiced present-day objections. And I should think other indigenous peoples might object as well. That kind of misappropriation of a name is emblematic of a larger historical process of dehumanizing indigenous people and their cultures, societies, histories, and traditions, and reducing them to mythic caricatures to be used, in this case, for commercial marketing purposes.</p>
<p>Bravo to Eastern Michigan University for having the good sense and common decency to recognize that, and to end its misappropriation of the name “Hurons.”</p>
<p>Grew up near Pittsburgh right near Indiana Univ of PA and California Univ of PA. Both are named after the towns they are located in. I never found the names a bit odd until relocating to Ohio. … No one I know who attends OSU calls it The Ohio State University. I have only heard a few pro football players and such do that in their bios. It might be the proper name but it is not commonly used.</p>
<p>There is a Pittsburg State U. in Pittsburg, KS–and I wonder if those from outside the area, if they ever heard the name or saw, for example, an alumni sticker on a car, would think the school is in Pittsburgh, PA</p>
<p>D attends WUSTL and she refers to it as Washington University. No one knows what she is talking about though. It’s actually pretty funny when folks ask her about the north east or conversely, about the DC area. That’s why the kids wear tee shirts that say on the back “it’s in St. Louis DAMMIT”.</p>
<p>But if she just says Washu - she just receives blank stares. It’s like there is no frame of reference to even begin discussing what school she attends.</p>
<p>Although it seems to me that the legal name is actually Washington University in St. Louis - the school administration just refers to it as Washington University in formal presentations. The “in St Louis” part seems really awkward when dealing with people who have never heard of it before. It seems like I am trying to push the fact that it is “in St Louis” unnecessarily. Because it doesn’t help these folks identify the school. The whole thing is actually hilarious!</p>
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