Why are they commonly named after the Greek alphabet? Some fraternities and sororities have chapters across different campuses.
These groups are notorious for their exclusivity and high bar of entry, but if one is able to become a member, these challenges can pay off big time: many sorority sisters and fraternity brothers become life long friends as well as colleagues in their professional fields. Students initially came together in to establish the first fraternity at the College of William and Mary. Thus Phi Beta Kappa was born.
Another motivation for using the Greek alphabet was to create an air of secrecy around the club. Although some Greek letter organizations in the United States in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries certainly bore a number of resemblances to modern fraternities, they were still basically thought of as elite honor societies and they were not nearly as prominent on college campuses as fraternities and sororities usually are today. Ironically, it was in the late nineteenth century, when the influence of classical Greek and Latin was waning, that social fraternities first became truly prominent on American college campuses.
Eventually, as knowledge of Ancient Greek became less common and the study of the language became a less integral part of the American university system, most Greek letter organizations stopped having Greek mottos.
Nonetheless, these organizations continued to use Greek letters in their names because that was what they had always done and, by the time they stopped having Greek mottos, Greek letter names had become traditional. It was later renamed Alpha Delta Pi. Therefore, the esteemed Dr. Basically, the whole reason why modern fraternities and sororities use Greek letters for their names is because an honor society over years ago was being super-pretentious and everyone else followed along until eventually they all just forgot why they started naming themselves after Greek letters to begin with.
Nowadays the names of most fraternities and sororities are just random jumbles of meaningless Greek letters that do not stand for anything. I'm Spencer McDaniel! I am currently a student at Indiana University Bloomington pursuing a double major in classical studies and history.
I am obsessed with the ancient world and I write about it constantly. My main area of study is ancient Greece, but I also write about other areas of history as well. View all posts by Spencer McDaniel. You are welcome! In the past some Universities have tried to shut them down and some state governments have tried to disband them. Yet the fraternity survives. And it will continue to survive. Fraternities and sororities were established to further the social, scholastic and professional interests of its members.
They are mainly associated with colleges and universities. Most fraternities and sororities adopt Greek letters to represent their organization, and as a result they are often referred to as Greek letter societies, or simply Greek organizations.
The word fraternity comes from the Latin word "frater" meaning brother. The word fraternity is often used to described not only organizations comprised of men, but also women. Originally, both groups were called fraternities because that was the only word that existed during the s to describe the type of organization they were. This may be due to the fact that most of these organizations were originally started by men.
This was by the suggestion of their advisor who was a Professor of Latin and thought the word suited them better. The word sorority comes from the Latin word "soror" meaning sister. However by this point, many women's organizations had already been officially and legally incorporated and could not change their name.
Today, many of the older "sororities" are referred to by that name, but may have the word fraternity in their official title. This site. Appalachian State University. Fraternity and Sorority Life. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Black Fraternity and Sorority Facts. Skip to content. Greek Letters Greek Letters.
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