Naming a room, finding a home

Ed Kelley ’13 lives in a room with an entrance just like that of any other room in Whitman, with the exception of a crest on the nameplate next to the door. The shield contains the flags of Texas, Hong Kong, Brazil and Florida surrounded by a moose and a lobster, with the motto “praeterire feminas acquirere pecuniam.” Inside, a leather armchair, an oriental rug and a TV set to the fireplace channel greet visitors. This isn’t a typical student dorm. Welcome to the Chalet.

After drawing into a quad, Kelley and his roommates, Rodrigo Menezes ’13, Jonathan Yergler ’13 and Chris Leung ’13, decided to bestow a name upon their room. “We wanted the classiest, most sophisticated and silliest name possible,” Kelley said. Thus, the Chalet was born.

Kelley, Menezes, Yergler and Leung are not alone in naming their room. This practice has resulted in monikers such as the Holy Broman Empire, the Man Castle, the Complex and the Bakery. The multi-person suites in Wilson College are also home to a large proportion of uniquely named rooms, including the Penthouse, the Playhouse, the Zoo and Gauss House.

Jessie Ye ’14, a resident of the 11-person Gauss House, explained that adopting a name for the room has given her suitemates a sense of camaraderie. “It doesn’t mean that we are all best friends, because everyone has different personalities and we pretty much got randomly thrown together, but we try to get along as best we can,” she said.

For other students, the name extends past a single physical room and encompasses an entire community. The Shotgun spans the Main Inn on the second floor of Forbes College. According to member Branden Lewiston ’14, the Shotgun initially included one advisory group but has since expanded to include a larger circle of about 25 students independent of room location.

Lewiston explained that each room within the Shotgun takes on a different function. There is a food room, a social area and a gaming room, and it is not uncommon to find four or five “Shotgunners” in the same room at a given time. “Our system of ‘room specialization’ ... has allowed us to turn Shotgun into a cohesive living group that offers living benefits which far surpass what we would individually experience,” Lewiston said.

Some rooms have developed friendly rivalries with each other. The Holy Broman Empire, for example, rose in opposition to the Chalet and the Man Castle. “By clearly differentiating ourselves from them, we help hapless Princetonians from accidently walking into the Chalet and the Man Castle when the real party is happening in the Holy Broman Empire,” resident JC Chou ’13 said.

Likewise, the Penthouse and the Playhouse, and the Eye and the Retina, sets of identical neighboring suites in 1927-Clapp Hall, have engaged in friendly competition. When people confused the Penthouse and Playhouse, for example, “We would get mock-angry at them for getting the name wrong, saying that there was a big difference and ours was much better,” said Kevin Whitaker ’13, who lived in the Playhouse his freshman year.

Whitaker is also an executive editor for sports for The Daily Princetonian.

While some students take creative license in naming their rooms, others inherit dorms with existing names. “In Wilson, a bunch of rooms have just had nicknames that have been around for at least my entire time at Princeton,” said Adi Rajagopalan ’13, a resident of the Retina. Rajagopalan, however, does not refer to his room as the Retina, instead calling it by its room number.

Rajagopalan is a former member of the ‘Prince’ Editorial Board.

These names often carry reputations that residents try to pass on. Whitaker recalled other freshmen already being familiar with the Playhouse in the fall. “We thought it was pretty cool,” he said. “We like to think we helped build that reputation.”

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However, rooms do not need to be huge suites to form a lasting legacy at the University. Rather, the formation of close relationships in these areas transcends the physical space and the school year.