University of Kent - Name

Name

The university's original name, chosen in 1962, was the University of Kent at Canterbury, reflecting the fact that the campus straddled the boundary between the county borough of Canterbury and Kent County Council. At the time it was the normal practice for universities to be named after the town or city whose boundaries they were in, with both "University of Kent" and "University of Canterbury" initially proposed. The name adopted reflected the support of both the city and county authorities, as well as the existence of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, which officially opposed the use of a name too similar to its own. The abbreviation UKC became a popular abbreviation for the university.

Part of the original reasoning for the name disappeared when local government reforms in the 1970s resulted in the Canterbury campus falling entirely within the City of Canterbury, which no longer has county borough status, and Kent County Council. In 2003 the name of the university was shortened to the University of Kent.