ON THIS DAY IN 1896: The College of New Jersey announced its name change to “Princeton University.” The “University” part I can understand. The institution was no longer just a college, and its faculty and students wanted the name to reflect that. But why would a school that had been a hotbed of revolutionary fervor in 1770s want to be called “Princeton”? It doesn’t have much of a republican ring to it. Why not “University of New Jersey”?

The story is that the school had always been located in Princeton, New Jersey, and thus it had occasionally been referred to as “Princeton College” (much as the University of Michigan is sometimes called “Ann Arbor”). On the other hand, it had a lot of other nicknames too—like Nassau College. I suspect that to the Gilded Age ear, “Princeton” and all things British aristocracy just sounded cool, while “New Jersey” didn’t (and still doesn’t). Alas.