Why fraternities and sororities use greek letters

However, in the 's some groups had graduated enough alumni who had become successful and donated money and services to the fraternity to help secure a house for the chapter. The advent of the Chapter House marked the beginning of a period of prosperity and increased growth for fraternities. It also signaled a change in the makeup of the organization and their priorities.

What used to be a special occasion when the fraternity all gathered together all of a sudden became a regular event. While this meant more interaction, it also meant a large part of the attention of the fraternity had to be focused on the house itself. Alumni had to form boards to become incorporated and handle mortgage payments, legal matters and large repairs or improvements. Active members at the chapter had to handle day to day business, which no longer included only intellectual daydreaming, free expression or academic exploration.

It meant cleaning, maintaining, and paying for the property, and in some cases building the house! Since many of the members were now formally living together, recreational activities came to the forefront since they were spending so much time together.

Economic concerns also became a priority, simply because it takes money to own and maintain a property. But the Chapter House gave its members the opportunity to learn more practical skills and offered them the chance to take on more responsibility and gain leadership skills.

Originally members were given formal invitations and initiated one by one, often on separate occasions. But with many organizations now having their own houses that needed to be kept full, they often fiercely competed for the interests of incoming freshman. Today, "rush" has been replaced by "recruitment", signifying the active role a chapter takes to find the best members for their organizations. The very first fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa was founded in , and was kept a "secret".

In they disclosed their secrets and bylaws. Today, some fraternities keep their traditions and constitutions secret, and some publish them. At first, the names of all Greek letter organizations stood for mottos in Ancient Greek, which were often kept secret and revealed only to initiates. 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.

Phi Beta Kappa expanded to the Harvard and Yale campuses by Students found the use of the Greek alphabet as a signifier of academic integrity to be a rich basis on which to build the culture of fraternities and sororities. Different groups modeled after the chapter at the College of William and Mary began to open up, combining and recombining different letters and numbers from the Greek alphabet to distinguish themselves from the original Phi Beta Kappa while simultaneously aligning themselves with the culture.

Greek life has become a staple of American colleges and universities and has had no lack in prestigious members. Phi Beta Kappa alone has inducted 17 U. See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter. Members often join to expand their social circle and develop deeper relationships with others, whom they can study with, rely on, and become close friends with.

Greek life brings a sense of community where members tend to become very close and host social events with opportunities for networking and gaining professional contacts.

These communities often invite guest speakers to educate members on different topics and provide learning experiences. Joining a frat or sorority can also provide an opportunity for communal living if campus housing is limited. The answer is simpler than you might think. Houses are typically named after two to three letters in the Greek alphabet , which makes each house unique and distinct from others. They wanted their club to come across as more serious and intellectual to others, and they believed that naming it with Greek and Latin letters would convey their intelligence well.

Greek communities operate to bring intellectual as well as social benefits to their members.