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How did UC Berkeley end up developing two nicknames?

  • As far as I know, UC Berkeley is the only university that goes by two distinctive nicknames: Cal and Berkeley.  On top of that they are used somewhat distinctively (athletics strongly favors Cal.. academics uses Berkeley much more). This split seems so strong that some non West Coasters don't realize Cal and Berkeley are the same school. Berkeley of course was the first UC, so I can see how the Cal name was adopted.  But how did the Berkeley nickname come to simultaneously exist? And where does the athletics/academics split come from?

  • Answer:

    I think you pretty much answered the question yourself.  Berkeley is Cal because it was the first UC.  In terms of NCAA athletics, most of the other UCs are not in NCAA I-A, with the only exception being UCLA (I think, but I could be wrong). For example, UCSB, UCDavis, UC Santa Cruz are not in the PAC-12, only UCLA and Berkeley are. The Berkeley name is used in research and academic circles, because the other UCs are also top schools in research.  For example, you'll find most/all of the different UC campuses ranked in the top 50 of computer science departments (e.g. UCSD is ranked ~top 20 in US News, UCSB is ranked top 15 in the NRC rankings).  In these contexts, Berkeley needs to be separate and named as its own entity separate from the other UC campuses.

Ben Y. Zhao at Quora Visit the source

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Seems to be an east coast west coast split. I prefer the name Cal but back east nobody knows what that is so I have to say Berkeley.

Ryan Petersen

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