How do Colleges end up with horrid names?

How can a college, presumably full of educated personal, end up with a horrid name? Do they not seek outside help? Are they just trapped in a box and refuse outside help?

I'm not pointing fingers but...

Global University?
Excelsior?

The reason I did not attend Global was based on their name, how sad is that? I just could see any church's (Not the Chicken place) not taking my resume seriously based off the name. My wife also said she refused to tell people her husband attended Global University.

 

"Excelsior" stands for ever upward and is the motto of New York. I've always that Charter Oak State College was worse because it makes it sound like a nursing home or daycare center, but that name has historical meaning.

 

One of my alma maters made an absolutely horrendous name change, from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology to William James College. It makes no sense on several fronts, the first being that MSPP was a widely known and well respected name. The second big one is that it's solely a graduate school, only offering M.A., C.A.G.S., and Psy.D. degrees (some graduate certificates), so the name "college" makes no sense at all.

 

I'm not fond of New Charter University's name. Every time I see the name I think of the charter schools that are prevalent in Texas.

 

Not horrid, but The Ohio College of Clowning Arts is distinctive.

About – The Ohio College of Clowning Arts

 

That is odd

Hey that's my school! From Andrew Jackson University to New Charter.

 

I wonder if they do their market research and have a certain target audience/customer base in mind? That's the only thing that makes sense to me. I agree that "Global University" sounds suspicious. It reminds me of something that a diploma mill might call itself.

 

It is called Global University because it is the online school in the Assemblies of God educational system.

 

Oh! Interesting! I guess that as an outsider, "diploma mill" was the first thing that came to mind. Thanks for clarifying!

 

It screams diploma mill for sure.

 

My guess a naming committee. I attended Lakehead U.

 

Well, as they learned at the Ayds candy company and Sisters of Isis Cosmetics, the meaning of words changes, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly, with time.

Do you suppose Dyke College and Beaver College had 'those' connotations when they were founded?

And what if the next killer who mows down 26 school children is Sammy Capella or Moses "Killer" Kaplan.

 

Just spit coffee out of my mouth. Pure gold.

 

A Capella degree might cause some to think you went to some obscure music school.
A Walden degree might cause some to think you sat around a pond with a bunch of transcendentalists.
A Phoenix degree might cause some to think that you rose up out of the ashes.

 

I wonder how many Southerners attend Union.

 

Ironically, a lot from Atlanta.

 

I don't know. I would have thought John Wilkes Booth would have had an adverse impact on Wilkes University. Heck, it doesn't even seem to phase the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business!

I've always been intrigued by the way we allow some names to be completely ruined and others seem to remain isolated to the original offender.

If I named my son "Adolf" people's minds would immediately jump to the most famous Hitler. But if I moved to South America and named him Adolfo, people would probably be a lot cooler about it.

Recently we were discussing a proposal to rename "Lynch Hall" even though the man it was named for was, by all accounts, a really great guy. But every movement to phase Andrew Jackson's name and image out of the public eye fizzles quickly (even though he was a pretty terrible person).

 

In historical China it was considered very bad form to use the given name of the Emperor when naming a baby. Here in the West there are a number of perfectly good names that have become taboo due to there historical connotation. Adolph has been mentioned already but two others, more religious in nature are Lucifer and Judas.

 

I enjoy browsing at the site "babynameswizard.com" where we learn, for instance, thaty Adolph(f) was fairly popular (1 out 2,000 boys) until the 1930s, then declined almost to zero by hte 60s.

I would have guessed that the two most popular US boys' names right now are Noah and Liam.