Help me come up with a snooty name for my homeschool

[Garga]

I'd like my homeschool to sound somewhat snooty.  I need some sort of old rich-sounding English family name, like Lockwood Academy.

 

Any ideas?

[maize]

Groombridge Academy

 

For this place: http://www.groombridgeplace.com/the-gardens-of-groombridge-place/

[happypamama]

Lastname Academy?  Or maybe someone in your family has a maiden name that would work well, if you want to keep your last name off of the school name.

 

Mine is named after a couple of things, a favorite Bible verse and a nod to our country life, plus Academy, but I could name it after our street plus Academy, and it would sound somewhat snooty.  Maybe not old English snooty, but it would still sound like a private school.

 

I joke that mine is the Bag End School for the Vertically Challenged and Perpetually Famished, but I wouldn't put that on anything official because it's not as professional as I'd like.

[Mrs Twain]

I would like one of those, too.

[Guest]

Mine is named after my late grandmother: herfirstname herlastname Memorial Academy.

 

dd wanted "Academy for Young Ladies" but her little brothers always ruin everything.

[wintermom]

Ffrench is a really interesting old British name. It would make a memorable name, or at least you'd get a few questions.  :laugh:

[daijobu]

DH likes to call our area, "the neighborhood of pretentious street names" because they all sound incongruously British.  Here are some of the names.  Just add "Academy."

 

Yarborough

Whitehall

Kentfield

Kingsford

Knightsbridge

Chatsworth

Sheffield

Brighton

Cardiff

Chelsea

Danbury

Camberly

Bradbury

Tadley

Atherwood

 

HTH!  

[AimeeM]

St. Hedwig's School for Exceptional Children :)

[Hunter]

Some of the most snooty schools are only for boys or girls.

 

Did you try googling "affluent surnames".

[Wishes]

I like Danbury from daijabu

[LMD]

We used to live just off poets lane, where we had streets like tennyson drive, keats court and wordsworth place. Very snooty sounding.

 

Wordsworth way scholars

Sonnet Grove school

[fourisenough]

I run the {street name} Academy for Girls. I understand there are many children and parents in our area interested in applying, but, alas, it's so exclusive that one must have been born into it to even have a shot at being accepted.

 

We even had our own plaid and a school crest at one point.

[fralala]

If you didn't want to call it an Academy, you could always go the "Hall" route. Or if you want to call it a School, you must put The before it.

 

Combining TWO pretentious names, either by hyphenating or simply with a space, is always effective.

[rutheart]

Kensington

Rutherford

 

Try adding a suffix to a last name, like: -dale, -vale, -field, -caster, -chester, -wick, or -haven.

 

Ruth

 

[Aurelia]

Make it some sort of "preparatory school"? 

 

Westminster Preparatory School

Lancaster Academy for the Gifted

 

 

Eton College is a prestigious boys' school in Britain. You might play off that (or any other school), like Eaton Preparatory Academy.

[Dmmetler]

DD picked Mount Parnassus Academy, which certainly sounds snooty enough :)

[purpleowl]

Make it some sort of "preparatory school"? 

 

Westminster Preparatory School

Lancaster Academy for the Gifted

 

 

Eton College is a prestigious boys' school in Britain. You might play off that (or any other school), like Eaton Preparatory Academy.

 

Ha, one of those actually was my high school's name!

 

We opted for "Athenaeum" at the end of our homeschool name instead of School or Academy. 

[Storygirl]

Could you choose the name of your favorite author of classic literature?

 

Austen

Fitzgerald

Chaucer

Carroll

Homer

Stevenson

Eliot

Defoe

Thackeray

Alcott

Melville

Thoreau

Shakespeare

Hawthorne

Tolstoy

Twain

Faulkner

 

Bonus points if you choose Bacon ;) .

Edited December 11, 2016 by Storygirl

[clementine]

Summit Academy (snooty in that you've already reached the top?)

 

 

[Guest]

Machiavelli Preparatory :p (j/k)

[EndOfOrdinary]

Andover. This way they could claim they "went to Andover" and would not be lying.

[quark]

If your sons like knights, something with Knight in the name (like daijobu's Knightsbridge) might be fun and also relevant to interests.

 

I always thought Rochester sounds pretty snooty.

 

Did you know that there's such a thing as a Pompous British Name Generator? :D

[Plink]

*anything*shire Boarding School

 

British towns, the word Queen's, and anything with the word Oxford all sound pretty snooty

 

[...................]

Oakwood

 

St. Anything 

 

You can also add "Private School" to the end

 

Oakwood Private School

 

St. Aloasius Private School 

 

We lived on an Andover Lane once and I loved how snooty it sounded. LOL

 

 

[...................]

My husband says Wenslydale Prep School for boys (but you know that is the cheese from Wallace and Gromit)

[horsellian]

This is a side note, but in England "Academy" is a part of the name of lots of schools that failed and were reopened under the government's academy programme, so is pretty much the opposite of snooty. Most snooty names don't include it, or even "School". Many do use "College" but that's probably weird in a US context.

[luuknam]

DD picked Mount Parnassus Academy, which certainly sounds snooty enough :)

 

To be honest, that one strays into silly territory, imo. As in, not very likely to be a real school's name.

 

Ha, one of those actually was my high school's name!

 

We opted for "Athenaeum" at the end of our homeschool name instead of School or Academy. 

 

In NL, gymnasium is snootier than atheneum, because while both are the highest stream (pre-university), the only difference is that in a gymnasium, you also get Ancient Greek and Latin. Not that schools usually have atheneum or gymnasium in their name, since they usually offer more than one stream (and, of course, in English, "Gymnasium" would sound weird as part of a school's name).

 

My high school's name ended in "College", pronounced col-LAY-zye (that last 'e' is supposed to be a schwa). Which reminds me that pronouncing something in French will also make it snootier, though it wouldn't help on paper.

[LMD]

I just looked up synonyms of academy and got 'brainery' 😂

 

I also like circle or society.

 

I think we will henceforth be known as The Sonnet Grove Colloquium - society of brainery and lore.

:rofl:

[Woodland Mist Academy]

What is your goal? A fun name to use amongst yourselves? Something to ward off the vultures at dinner parties when they ask where your children attend school? To look impressive on college applications?

 

It might be wise to avoid the blurry area between snooty and mocking or pretentious. Crossing that line might actually do more harm than good.

 

It is, perhaps, also advisable to have solid reasoning behind the name, in case your are ever asked. Otherwise, it just rings hollow.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

For the record, Woodland Mist Academy isn't our official school name.  ;) 

 

We've had various unofficial names over the years, but only one official. 

Edited December 12, 2016 by Woodland Mist Academy

[Ellie]

For the first few years we homeschooled in California, where private schools (including homeschools) have to file an affidavit annually, we were Freedom Learning Center. Eventually, dds said they couldn't tell people they went to Freedom Learning Center, so the last year we were there, it was Southeast San Diego Christian Academy, which was much snootier. :D

[Garga]

What is your goal? A fun name to use amongst yourselves? Something to ward off the vultures at dinner parties when they ask where your children attend school? To look impressive on college applications?

 

It might be wise to avoid the blurry area between snooty and mocking or pretentious. Crossing that line might actually do more harm than good.

 

It is, perhaps, also advisable to have solid reasoning behind the name, in case your are ever asked. Otherwise, it just rings hollow.

I do want it for diplomas, so not just for us to have fun with.

 

I do not want it to be cutsey. At all.

 

I want it to sound academic and substantial, but without crossing into the rings hollow territory. So, not so snooty that it is a joke, but just snooty enough that it subtly gives the impression of excellence without the listener even realizing that the name has had an impact on their impression.

 

I don't want it to sound like a public school, so I want it to sound like an established private school that is heavily focused on academics and excellence. I had been strongly leaning to Lincoln High School, just because the name Lincoln High School appeals to me. But it certainly comes across as a public school, so I'm rethinking the name.

 

I think an old English name + Academy will fit the bill. Some of the suggestions on the thread have sounded pleasing to my ear.

 

 

ETA: Good point about having a reason for the name if explanations are required (like if my sons are asked during a college interview.). I think I'll be looking around at the local street names. There's a series of names based on places in England or titles. Like, there are King and Queen and Prince streets, Whitehall street, etc. I could use one of those and then the kids could say, "We named our school based on the street in our neighborhood."

Edited December 12, 2016 by Garga

[ElizabethB]

Mine is named after my late grandmother: herfirstname herlastname Memorial Academy.dd wanted "Academy for Young Ladies" but her little brothers always ruin everything.

You can have two schools, go for it, Academy for young ladies and Academy for young men!!

[Janeway]

Miss Garga's Day School. Whatever your name is I mean.

 

Coventry Day School.

[nobeatenpath]

Yarborough

Whitehall

Kentfield

Kingsford

Knightsbridge

Chatsworth

Sheffield

Brighton

Cardiff

Chelsea

Danbury

Camberly

Bradbury

Tadley

Atherwood

 

 

Kind of a hilarious list considering how 'not snooty' some of those places are. And plenty of them already have 'academies' that are also less than posh e.g. Yarborough Academy

Edited December 13, 2016 by nobeatenpath

[daijobu]

Kind of a hilarious list considering how 'not snooty' some of those places are. And plenty of them already have 'academies' that are also less than posh e.g. Yarborough Academy

 

I'm so provincial, it never occurred to me that Britain was the theme of the street names around here.  DH had to tell me.  

[J-rap]

Blank (Last name, or a snooty name like Rutherford or Kensington) Institute of Higher Learning.

[Mrs Twain]

I have always liked Merriwether.

[ByGrace3]

I pondered Latin and Greek words that enveloped our philosophy of schooling and life in general. We ended up with Telos Academy. However, my children have never even heard the name and have idea they attend such a school. :lol:

[Rebel Yell]

For diploma purposes (which basically means, we display the diploma at the grad party and then nobody cares or asks to see it again, EVER) we are:

 

Lastname Christian Academy and Boarding School for Select Girls

[Beth S]

Well, our homeschool friend got a full ride to vet school (kind of) because they had an unsophisticated homeschool name.

The interviewer asked, "And what kind of school is Green Tree Academy?"

Friend said, "Well, you can blame that on my older brother, who named our homeschool when he was 5 years old."

They got to laughing together & friend bonded really well with the interviewer . . . and ended up with a full-ride scholarship. 

 

Ours combines the name of our subdivision with "hollow" as we are in the lower-lying section.

 

My dh did draw a personalized school crest, with 4 different symbols representing our school's goals.

We put the (gold-ish ink) crest next to the school contact info at the top of the kids' transcripts. 

It looks posh.

Our dd said no one has ever questioned her schooling.  :)

Edited December 15, 2016 by Beth S

[maize]

To be honest, that one strays into silly territory, imo. As in, not very likely to be a real school's name.

 

 

In NL, gymnasium is snootier than atheneum, because while both are the highest stream (pre-university), the only difference is that in a gymnasium, you also get Ancient Greek and Latin. Not that schools usually have atheneum or gymnasium in their name, since they usually offer more than one stream (and, of course, in English, "Gymnasium" would sound weird as part of a school's name).

 

My high school's name ended in "College", pronounced col-LAY-zye (that last 'e' is supposed to be a schwa). Which reminds me that pronouncing something in French will also make it snootier, though it wouldn't help on paper.

But then there's the fact that in France a collège is usually a middle school, grades 6-9... Edited December 15, 2016 by maize

[alisoncooks]

I think our school name sounds formal/official.

Ours is County Name (which is an English surname) Hills (cause our area is hilly) Academy.

 

My kids don't know it and we never use it, though. :p

[luuknam]

But then there's the fact that in France a collège is usually a middle school, grades 6-9...

 

Oh, that comment wasn't specific to college, just to French pronunciation.