Stories of names

Who was Harvard named after? Origin of university names

Image: Czapp Árpád

Who were the men named Harvard, Rice, or Duke? Only true visionaries would donate half of their estate to sculpting the minds of the future. From the heartfelt tribute behind Stanford’s name to the post-revolutionary rebranding of Columbia, these stories are monuments to history and culture. Let’s take a stroll through academia’s memory lane and uncover the origins of these storied university names!

Image: Clay Banks

Ah, Harvard! The Ivy League giant was once a small college in the Massachusetts Bay Colony settlement called New Towne. But where did "Harvard" come from?

Enter John Harvard, a clergyman who, in 1638, decided to bequeath half his estate and his library (a whopping 400 books!) to the fledgling college. Grateful for this generous gift, they promptly named the institution after him.

Image: Richard Liu

A gem of New Haven, Connecticut, Yale is another Ivy League powerhouse known for its prestigious law and drama schools.

It owes its name to Elihu Yale, a wealthy merchant who, in 1718, donated a modest shipment of goods (including portraits, books, and textiles) to a struggling collegiate school. Those goods were auctioned off, raising a much-needed £562 –a small fortune at the time.

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This New Jersey Ivy Leaguer, famous for its stunning Gothic architecture and strong emphasis on undergraduate education, has a bit of a nomadic past. Originally called the College of New Jersey, the educational institution moved around and changed names over the decades.

Eventually, it settled in Princeton, and became popularly referred to as "Prince-town’s College." However, the name wasn’t formally adopted until 1896.

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In the urban jungle of New York City, Columbia University boasts a vibrant campus life and a reputation for academic excellence. But did you know it was once known by a less-than-patriotic name?

It was founded in 1754 as King's College, which became a bit awkward after the revolution. It was then renamed Columbia College, "Columbia" being a poetic name for the new, independent country that was America at the time.

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Dartmouth is renowned for its beautiful rural setting, nestled in the picturesque town of Hanover, New Hampshire. It was named after the Earl of Dartmouth, William Legge, a British nobleman who supported the college's founding –despite never actually setting foot in America!

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This Rhode Island Ivy, known for its open curriculum and emphasis on student choice, was founded with a mouthful of a name – the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

It was renamed in 1704 for Nicholas Brown, Jr., a prominent merchant whose family donated generously to the school.

Image: Emily Xie

Perched atop a hill overlooking Ithaca, New York, Cornell is celebrated for its diverse academic programs and its stunning natural surroundings.

Founded by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, this university was unique for its commitment to practical education, allowing students the freedom to choose their own course of study. It was a revolutionary notion at the time, which would guide a curricular reform across the country.

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Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford is renowned for its entrepreneurial spirit and its close ties to the tech industry. But this California powerhouse has a touching origin story.

Leland Stanford, Jr., the founder's son, tragically died young from typhoid fever. His father Leland Sr., railroad magnate and former state governor, and his mother Jane, founded the university in his memory, ensuring his legacy lived on through the pursuit of knowledge.

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This North Carolina research giant, known for its strong medical and law schools, underwent a bit of a name change in its history.

Originally called Trinity College, it was renamed Duke University in 1924 after James Buchanan Duke, a tobacco and electric power industrialist who founded the American Tobacco Company. He established The Duke Endowment, to which he donated throughout his life and left half his estate after his death.

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Nestled in Nashville, Tennessee, Vanderbilt is a renowned research university with a vibrant campus life. It owes its name to "The Commodore," Cornelius Vanderbilt, a shipping and railroad magnate, who provided the initial gift to establish the university.

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Texas businessman William Marsh Rice provided the initial funding for this Houston university, but did not live to see its opening. He was murdered by his valet as he slept, in a plot to forge the man’s will.

Despite the unfortunate circumstances, Rice University flourished through the years, becoming an institution known for its strong engineering and science programs.

Image: Greg Campbell

"USC" is a sprawling campus known for its film school and its Trojan spirit. It was founded by Robert Maclay Widney, a judge who envisioned a university that would serve the growing area. Back then it was only an expanding frontier town, which would evolve to become the city of Los Angeles.

Tango, Bravo

Codewords decoded: How many did you know?

In situations where clear communication is paramount, especially when lives are at stake, professionals often rely on standardized codewords and phonetic alphabets designed to prevent confusion. Either from movies or from personal experience, it's probable that you've heard at least some of these before, and many have found their way into everyday conversation. Let's find out how many of these code expressions you can recognize.

Mayday is the international distress call used when the sender is in immediate, life-threatening danger. Pilots and mariners use it to signal that they require urgent assistance due to situations such as engine failure, fire, flooding, or medical emergencies.

The word was introduced in 1923 by British radio officer Frederick Stanley Mockford, who based it on the French phrase m'aider, meaning "help me," in an attempt to make it internationally recognizable. Hearing this transmission immediately alerts emergency responders that every second counts.

Not every emergency is severe enough to warrant a mayday call. When a crew faces a problem that is urgent but not immediately life-threatening, the appropriate codeword is Pan-Pan.

Like mayday, it comes from French: it derives from panne, meaning a breakdown or mechanical failure. A Pan-Pan call might be used if an aircraft loses an engine but can still fly safely, or if a ship experiences equipment problems while remaining under control. It tells responders that assistance is needed, but that the situation has not yet become critical.

Few emergency signals are as universally recognizable as SOS. Contrary to popular belief, the letters do not officially stand for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls." It was adopted in 1906 because SOS is an extremely simple, easy-to-transmit, and unmistakable pattern in Morse code.

SOS remains one of the world's most enduring distress signals, and it's still recognized by rescue organizations all around the globe.

In the NATO phonetic alphabet, each letter is assigned a unique word to eliminate confusion when radio transmissions are distorted by noise or poor reception. If you've ever heard someone spell a name as "Mike Alpha Romeo Yankee," you've encountered the NATO phonetic alphabet.

The system was officially adopted by NATO in the 1950s and is now widely used by militaries, airlines, emergency responders, and many police departments worldwide. Using it greatly reduces the chance of misunderstanding important information over radio.

Roger dates back to the early days of radio communication, when the letter R stood for "received." Before the adoption of the NATO alphabet, the US military used Roger instead of Romeo to represent that letter_._

Although modern communications systems have changed and the US military has fully embraced the use of the NATO alphabet, Roger remains standard aviation terminology, and it's one of the best-known radio acknowledgments in the world. It conveys a very simple but important meaning: "I have received and understood your message."

Although many people assume Roger and Wilco mean the same thing, they actually convey different messages. Wilco is short for "will comply." In other words, it tells the sender not only that the message was received and understood, but that the instruction will be carried out.

Saying both Roger and Wilco is technically redundant in proper radio communication, since complying necessarily implies understanding, but the combination is often heard in movies and television.

In the NATO phonetic alphabet, Tango simply represents the letter T. However, US military personnel have also adopted it as a shorthand when referring to a target or a hostile.

This secondary meaning became widely known through military operations in the twentieth century and has since appeared in countless books, films, and video games in phrases like "We've got one Tango moving north."

Oscar Mike, NATO for the letters O and M, is military shorthand for "On the Move." It's a quick way of reporting that a unit has begun moving toward its objective.

The expression is especially common in the US military and has become more familiar to the general public through documentaries, memoirs, and films. It's finding its way into civilian life, meaning simply "I'm heading out."

Ten-codes were developed during the 1930s to allow for brevity and standardization of message traffic in radio communications. They were widely adopted by US public safety departments and by radio enthusiasts.

While the system is being slowly phased out in favor of plain language communications, many local police, fire, and sheriff departments keep using it, and it is still strongly associated with radio culture by the general public. One of the most famous ten-codes is 10-4, meaning "received and understood."

Hospitals around the world use color-coded announcements to communicate emergencies without causing unnecessary panic among patients and visitors. Perhaps the best known is Code Blue, indicating that a patient is experiencing cardiac or respiratory arrest and requires immediate medical assistance.

While some hospitals use their own custom color codes, Code Blue has become so widely recognized that it now appears frequently in television dramas and everyday conversation whenever someone refers to a life-threatening medical emergency.