College presidents' names from the mid-20th century sound remarkably interchangeable, as if assembled from an elite Anglo-Saxon name generator. Veteran NBC newsman Edwin Newman highlighted this curiosity in his 1974 book Strictly Speaking, noting how Columbia's Nicholas Murray Butler would sound equally authoritative as "Butler Nicholas Murray" or "Murray Nicholas Butler."
The 1973 academic yearbook reads like prestigious magnetic poetry: Kingman Brewster, Brage Golding, Landrum Bolling, Wheeler Merriam. Newman suggested reading these formal, multi-part names in random combinations as a parlor game, creating accidental poetry like "Granville Dennard Bolling" or "Woodfin Heady Brewster."
Brage Golding, California State University
Harris L. Wofford, Jr., Bryn Mawr College
Thurston E. Manning, University of Bridgeport
Gibb Madsen, Hartnell College
Rexer Berndt, Fort Lewis College
Dumont Kenny, Temple Buell College
Woodfin P. Patterson, Jefferson Davis State Junior College
Imon E. Bruce, Southern State College
Cleveland Dennard, Washington Technical Institute
Culbreth Y. Melton, Emmanuel College
Pope A. Duncan, Georgia Southern College
Hudson T. Armerding, Wheaton College
Landrum R. Bolling, Earlham College
Mahlon A. Miller, Union College
Dero G. Downing, Western Kentucky University
Wheeler G. Merriam, Franklin Pierce College
Placidus H. Riley, St. Anselm's College
Ferrel Heady, University of New Mexico
Lane D. Kilburn, King's College
Hilton M. Briggs, South Dakota State University
Granville M. Sawyer, Texas Southern University
These distinguished nomenclatures weren't merely coincidental. They represent a linguistic fossil of who wielded academic power — overwhelmingly male and Anglo-Saxon individuals from a narrow slice of society.
Previously:
• Commencement announcer butchers the names of graduates
• Names that break databases
[Via Futility Closet]
