As a curious foreigner, the culture of fraternity/sorority houses is all very alien to me, but the use of the Greek alphabet seems almost universal.
Is there an origin story for this?
Do the particular letters chosen mean anything?
How does a house pick what “its” title will be, and do they have to claim it so that no other house uses it? Or is it one of these “lost to time” things?
Thanks!
[Chose “other” but i guess it’s sort of sociology!]
In: 506
Way back in the day when fraternities started (like the late 1800’s) the classics were a big deal in higher education in America. EVERYONE who attended a university would be educated on Greek and Latin. It’s important to note that Latin really wasn’t all that special or unique to higher education, because Catholics were and are absolutely everywhere in the USA. So when these groups formed, they picked something unique about themselves as an identifier. They chose Greek. In America, at the time, the only people who would know Greek were people who had attended universities. Newer fraternities (like those founded post WWII) just followed the established trend.
Especially with older fraternities the letters chosen typically had some personal significance to the founding members. For example, my fraternity uses the first letters of the names of the first three campuses the fraternity established chapters at.
Also important to note, each fraternity is typically a national organization (or international, hey Canadians!). The ATO at SUNY Albany is affiliated with the ATO at UC Berkeley. It’s the same organization. Just different chapters. So it’s not like each fraternity at each university is an isolated entity. These days, “nationals”, which is to say, the national office of a given fraternity will approach a university about starting a chapter there. They will buy property in the town, build a house, and begin recruiting. The idea is that eventually the chapter will be self sustaining, members doing all the work to maintain the fraternity. But if things go wrong, nationals will step in and attempt to steer the chapter back onto the right path.
At this point in time, most established fraternities names are trademarked by the national organization. If you tried to use the name “ATO” without actually being affiliated with the ATO organization, you would get sued.
It’s very different than what it used to be. They used to be very informal organizations. But they became more organized and codified as time went on. They got to their “current” state in the 1960-1970’s, and honestly haven’t changed a ton since then.
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