# Who was your school named after? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 6, 2010, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690 "2010-11-06T08:59:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/41 "2010-11-06T19:54:00Z")
[J. C. Nichols](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Clyde_Nichols), the Kansas City real estate magnate and developer of the [Country Club Plaza](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Club_Plaza). There is some controversy about Nichols and the Plaza. It is a Disney version of Seville, and some claim that he bought bombed-out buildings, crating them up and shipping them to KC, for pennies on the dollar. ---
**Author:** ![Sami41](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c57346/32.png) [@Sami41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sami41)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/42 "2010-11-06T19:54:56Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > But I hope you will not mind if I take this opportunity to mention that an elementary school in Montreal is named Elizabeth Bannantyne to honor a teacher who died dragging children from a burning school. Now that deserves to have a school named for! Definately. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/43 "2010-11-06T20:01:27Z")
My high school was named after a socialist farmer, [Henry Wise Wood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wise_Wood). ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/44 "2010-11-06T20:03:20Z")
My elementary schools were named after the towns they were in. My high school was named for one of the fathers of Canadian Confederation, [Alexander Galt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tilloch_Galt). My college was named after Samuel de [Champlain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champlain_Regional_College). University #1 was named after the town it was in, university #2 is named for its founder, [James McGill.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McGill) ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/45 "2010-11-06T20:07:05Z")
Hm, I guess I never attended a school named after a person. My elementary schools were named after random pleasant words, and my junior high and high schools were named after the town. For college and grad school I attended the Universities of California and Michigan. I feel like I’m missing out now. ---
**Author:** ![mil0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mil0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mil0)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/46 "2010-11-06T21:13:30Z")
[James Farley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Farley) DNC chairman, who grew up in Stony Point. The rest were named after the town or city the school resided in. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/47 "2010-11-06T21:45:53Z")
My elementary school was named after Laura Secord, who made a perilous foot journey to warn of an impending American attack, assuring a handy victory in the [Battle of Beaver Dams](http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0000620) during the war of 1812, ultimately contributing to a Canada free from NASCAR and weird football rules. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/48 "2010-11-06T23:11:13Z")
It has taken me hours, mostly sidetracked by some great Memphis history sites, to find the person Treadwell, the school I attended for 12 years, was named after “the A.B. Treadway family”. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/49 "2010-11-06T23:31:47Z")
[Saint Aloysius Gonzaga](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Gonzaga) ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/50 "2010-11-07T00:52:22Z")
A famous female scholar from the Talmud. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/51 "2010-11-07T01:10:32Z")
K-3, I went to a school called Hicks Montessori, and don’t know who it was named after (and it looks like it’s closed now, so it’ll be harder to find out now). 4-5, I went to a school called Gordon, named after the farmer who had owned the land a century or so previously (there are various other things named after him in the vicinity, too). 6th grade, I went to the imaginatively-named “Cleveland School of Science”. 7th-8th, I was at a school named after Civil Rights activist [Whitney Young](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Young). 9th grade was a Catholic school, named after [St. Edward the Confessor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_the_Confessor) 10th-12th was also Catholic, [St. Benedict](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia) Undergrad was [Thomas of Villanova](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_of_Villanova) And grad school is just named after the state. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/52 "2010-11-07T05:52:01Z")
Junior High, Nathaniel Hawthorne for no reason I can fathom. High School, Francis Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from NY who is buried not far away. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/53 "2010-11-07T16:48:46Z")
My elementary school was named after [Woodrow Wilson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_wilson). Now that I’ve learned what a total asshole he was, I’m almost ashamed to admit I went there. ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/54 "2010-11-07T17:04:01Z")
My first elementary was named after the street it was on. My second elementary school was named after the street it was on. My third elementary school was named after a local philanthropist who died in 2001 (huh, I thought he was dead when I was there. Shows what I know). My first middle school was named after the street it was on. My second middle school was named after the side of the city it was on (East). My third middle school was named after the street it was on and the street it was next to. My high school was named after the street it was on. My current college is named after the original name of the city, from when it was Nipmuc land. Worcester is apparently not very creative with school naming. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/55 "2010-11-07T17:08:34Z")
> [@congodwarf](#): > > Worcester is apparently not very creative with school naming. That or all the good names got scarfed by the private schools, or the colleges. (Come on, you’ve got a college there that everyone calls “Whoopie!” That’s a **great** name!) ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/56 "2010-11-07T17:19:31Z")
LOL I have never heard anyone call it that, even though I used to work with a bunch of interns from there and my best friend’s husband graduated from there. Of course, they’d have to come up with a creative nickname because Worcester Polytechnic Institute is just as boring as naming the school after the street. When I tell people my college’s name, their eyes glaze over. Apparently Quinsigamond Community College is too much for them to process. Quinsig is better. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/57 "2010-11-07T17:25:10Z")
Damnit. 20 years, and all the good jokes are dying off. ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/58 "2010-11-07T18:26:44Z")
I went to (Harriet) Tubman Middle School and (Theodore) Roosevelt High School. Sitton Elementary was named for Lefie Sitton, who was school board member when the school was built. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/59 "2010-11-07T18:36:29Z")
My elementary school, which went to grade 6, was simply named for the community, but my middle school, called “junior high” in those days, was named for Ralph Waldo Emerson. My high school was established in 1924 and named for President Warren G. Harding, the Nixon of his era. A few years later, they must have reconsidered because the school was renamed University High School. The girls at Uni were required to wear uniforms until 1930. Today all the kids at my elementary and middle schools now have to wear uniforms. ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/60 "2010-11-08T01:44:53Z")
My grade school was named after [Metacomet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacomet). People have mentioned schools named after the roads they’re on. My kids’ first elementary school was the [Village] Road School because it was on [Village] Road, where [Village] was also the name of the village we lived in. So, most people called it the Road School, parsing the first part as referring to the village, not the road. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690.md?page=4)