Catholic School names ... "Mount"?

Why do so many Catholic Schools have “Mount” in their names? And I don’t mean things that are place names (Mt. Zion, Mt. Bethel, Mt. Hebron, Mt. Carmel, Mt. Sinai, etc.) but rather those of the “Mount + Saint” variety (Mt. Saint Joseph’s Academy, Mount Michael Benedictine High School, Mount Mary College, Mount St. Clare College, Mount Saint Mary’s College, etc.). It seems to me they just take a saint’s name and slap “Mount” in front, regardless of the local geography. Anyone able to shed light on the reason for this?

I’m not sure, but the proliferation of Mount St. Mary’s and Marymounts has nothing to do with geography, but with the name of an order of nuns, The Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, aka the Marymount Sisters.

Perhaps that order started on a mountain that was called St. Mary’s or some variant of that.

There is a Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and it’s not on a mountain, although it is on a bluff.

I am not familiar with the topography of Emmitsburg, MD site of one Mount St. Mary’s college in the U.S.

There also was a Mount St. Mary’s College in LA around Hollywood and it was not located on any geographical feature with the same name.

while I was growing up, there was a Catholic school nearby. we only knew this because our phone number was one digit off from theirs, and my mom would get calls like this:

Mom: Hello

Caller: Is this “our lady, Queen of Martyrs?”

Mom: Why yes, yes it is.

Also, Benedictine monasteries (and a few other orders as well) are always built atop the highest point in a region, for the symbolic “city on a hilltop” which serves as an example to others. Of course, the highest point isn’t exactly a mountain in most places, but the terminoligy sticks.

Also, many saints have different titles…for example, MY church is called St Mary of the Assumption, although no one calls it that-it’s just plain St. Mary’s, or St. Mary Glenshaw (the postal area it’s in).
YOu might remember if you’re from the Western PA area…we had that pastor, Father Benz who stole all that money from the church donations…lousy bastard and his lying little hussy…claiming that the secretary did it! (And don’t tell me she’s not lying…my father KNEW the woman they accused…)

I’ve driven past Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, MD (on Route 15 IIRC). While it’s not exactly on a mountain, it is on something of a slope. Maybe “Mount St. Mary’s” just sounded better than plain old “St. Mary’s.”

Don’t forget that there are a lot of actual mountains named after saints. It is possible some of the schools and hospitals are named after mountains that were named after saints. A few examples [ul]
Mount Saint Bathans, New Zealand
Mount Saint Elias, Alaska/Yukon
Mount Saint Helens, Washington
Mount Saint John, Wyoming
Saint Mary Peak, Australia
Saint Michael’s Mount, England
Mont-Saint-Michel, France
Mount Saint Nicholas, Montana[/ul]I doubt most of these particular mountains have many schools, etc., named after them, but perhaps the schools were named directly or indirectly after mountains in the Holy Land that were named after saints. This may be hard to track down since most of the Holy Land is now controlled by Muslims and Jews who undoubtedly have their own names for these mountains. I can easily envision the Crusaders renaming mountains right and left after Christian saints. I can just as easily envision these names disappearing from the map when the Crusaders were finally booted out.

I go to Mount St. Mary’s in MD…it is thusly named because of its close location to the Catoctin Mountains. It’s not exactly on Mt. Everest, but it’s not completely flat terrain.

God, I thought I asked this question before. It wasn’t until I was halfwat through that I noticed the dates … and that I was the thread starter.

Ahh, Sept. 2000. Simpler times.

I went to HS in OKC at Mount St. Mary’s. It was run by the Sisters of Mercy. The school was on a hill but I never wondered what the “Mount” part was all about.

I think the Mount is only there so catholic school boys can make “I’d like to mount her St. Mary” type comments.

Little did I know, when I wrote this almost three years ago, that I was to soon begin work at Marymount College, Palos Verdes (CA). I must have been psychic, or more likely psychotic.