# 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:** 17\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/121 "2012-06-24T01:58:02Z")
Schools I attended in order from elementary on- 1-6 after the town’s name, 7-12 called Highland with no real known reason for the name, and college named after some fruit jar magnates. Schools I taught in: one after a Confederate General, one after a businessman, one after the street it’s on, and a Northeast Campus that’s both northwest of the main campus and on the northwest side of town. The counties were also named after the general and the businessman. I find it curious how nearly every high school in Georgia is named after the county and nearly no high schools in Indiana are named after the county. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/122 "2012-06-24T02:08:09Z")
Well, “nearly no” and “nearly all” are a bit exaggerated, but not much. Most schools in Georgia are named after the county and most in Indiana aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/123 "2012-06-24T02:59:32Z")
I went to 2 elementary schools, one was Longfellow and one was Mark Twain. The middle school was Gen. John Pershing. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/124 "2012-06-24T03:28:05Z")
Mary. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/125 "2012-06-24T03:54:30Z")
Ultimately, my elementary school was named after Tadeusz Kociuszko. It was named after the street it is in, Kosciuszko Street. The explorer Paul Strezlecki did an early survey of this area and named Australia’s highest peak “Mt. Kosciuszko” after the Polish national hero. Presumably the street name was inspired by Strezlecki’s connection to the early history of this region. My secondary school was named after the town, which has a Aboriginal name meaning “river of little fish”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/126 "2012-06-24T20:37:33Z")
> [@Damfino](#): > > My grammar school was named after William Harvey, who described the circulatory system. Ehrm, excuse me, the larger circulatory system. Miguel Servet had described the pulmonary circulatory system and posited that the rest would be similar. (Servet attended my high school) ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/127 "2012-06-24T20:51:32Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > [Montgomery Blair](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Blair), cabinet member of Abraham Lincoln. I thought it was named after the Blair witch! Did you go the the “old” Blair or the “new” one? ---
**Author:** ![BigNik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/73ab20/32.png) [@BigNik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigNik)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/128 "2012-06-25T00:57:39Z")
Indirectly for [Tommy Townshend](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Townshend,_1st_Viscount_Sydney) and the structural rules of language. My three primary schools were all named after the suburb that they were in. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/129 "2012-06-25T01:36:02Z")
Elementary schools: First for Dennis Chavez, basically the first Hispanic in the US Senate. Then for the road the school was on, named after the Comanche tribe. Middle schools: First for Grover Cleveland, then for James Madison. High school: For the Sandia mountains (most likely.) ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/130 "2012-06-25T15:11:20Z")
Elementary school was named after the first postmaster of the area it was in. Middle & High School named after the First British Governor General of the territories that would become Canada (although the schools were in the US, not Canada). College was named after someone who invented a way to efficiently bury telegraph cables. ---
**Author:** ![caveman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caveman/32/7242_2.png) [@caveman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caveman)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/131 "2012-06-25T17:52:09Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > John Coffee? Spellt like the drink? Indeed: [Hays, John Coffee](http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fhabq) ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/132 "2012-06-25T18:10:41Z")
My elementary and middle schools were named after presidents. My high school’s official name is Peoria High School (named after the city it’s in), but everybody calls it Central. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/133 "2012-06-25T18:54:09Z")
My elementary school (Ritchie Park) was sort of named after a [former governor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ritchie). It was really named after a road that was itself named for the governor. Robert Frost intermediate school was next. Then came Thomas Sprigg Wootton high school. Named for a former member of the Maryland Constitutional Convention and the founder of Montgomery County. Yay. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/134 "2012-06-25T19:01:20Z")
Didn’t realize that this was a zombie. So I answered twice. ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/135 "2012-06-25T19:09:49Z")
My primary school was named after Countess Ann, wife of a past Marquess of Salisbury. From the school website, in 1732, Anne, the 5th Countess of Salisbury, founded a charity school for the education of forty girls between the ages of nine and sixteen. It opened up to Boys in 1905. My secondary school was simply named after the town it served. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/136 "2012-06-25T20:48:59Z")
I went to [Kuhn Barnett](http://councilorg.net/Museum/barnett.htm) Elementary School in Radford, VA. ---
**Author:** ![Amblydoper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@Amblydoper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amblydoper)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690/137 "2012-06-25T23:48:31Z")
[Charles M. Russell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Marion_Russell), a famous western painter from Montana. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-your-school-named-after/559690.md?page=6)