Sorority family or line names
 

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Why do you need to branch off? Do you have a Big?

You should probably keep it in line with the rest of your chapter- e.g. if they all use animals, use an animal name. If it were me I'd want to pay some respect to the split line and make it something related to the original line. Related, but separate. Might be hard for people to give you any further suggestions without knowing how your chapter currently names them.

I still don't understand this. This make it seem like your current family isn't good enough for you. Do you have like a ridculous amount of littles or something?

This isn't the Mafia where you get your own family after you whack enough people & have enough territory. Leaving your old family and creating a completely new one - even if your big has left school/graduated - is an incredibly disrespectful idea and bound to create TONS of hurt feelings. If you want to change up some of the traditions (like song or name) do that, but you don't need to disassociate yourself from your family line.

***SMH***

^^^^ I pretty much agree with this.

In my APO chapter (which has family trees) we do have a tree which is pretty much humongous. It didn't "break" into two trees, but more like became two branches with different traditions.

My own family tree has three active branches. We have our tree traditions and then our branch traditions, which often are nothing more than similar themed nicknames. (On my branch, we all have military related names)

I'm on the alpha class, and the rest of the alpha class founders chose names that mean something to them, or are science and engineering related, one is just random
IE: My family line is the Hepburns' because i love Audrey and Katherine, while we also have one thats the Swoosh, based off the Nike sign

I almost spit out my soda when I saw this. :)

I agree with your post. I don't understand why someone would want to split off. :confused:

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There are different reasons as to why she would want to branch off whether it's because her family is the largest in the house or the fact that maybe she and her big don't get along (yes, it DOES happen, I've seen it!).

If her family is the largest and she or her big has multiple littles, eventually the family will look like a tree with branches. Most trees don't grow straight up. Like Sen said, different branches turn into their own little mini-families, while still keeping the line intact.

Also, "I don't get along with my big" is NOT an acceptable reason to end a whole family line. Not everyone is going to be BFFs with their big or little - it happens - but there's nothing that says the only people you're allowed to hang out with is your family. If there IS, then that's a chapter problem and it isn't going to be solved by letting people make "new families" whenever the mood strikes them.

Plus the OP didn't even say that they didn't get along, just that her big would be gone and she thought "it would be fun." Again, SMH.

It just sounds like OP wants to start her own clique within the chapter with matching shirts/etc.--not good.

In my sorority, the individual "big/lil" relationship is where the emphasis is placed (not on the "family tree"). This may be because some "family trees" run across several chapters, depending on the case (mine does). In any case, we would not break from the tradition of choosing your "own" group of sorority members to create a "family."

I personally do not see what the bid deal is. Unless the "Family Tree" is a part of your Inter/national tradition, it's open to change. All of this stuff is made up on the fly and can be adapted to suit the needs of the chapter and its members. It sounds like everyone in her chapter basically fits into one of four "families" and she wants a smaller family unit. In chapters that have just one little sis per member, you would have lots of small families. I can't imagine how a chapter would all be in one of four. Probably the best way to go about this would be to get other sisters to latch onto the idea of making mini-families within each family so there won't be any hurt feelings.

sounds like a random sub-strain of founderitis.

i actually dont understand how family trees work, im just concerned with my spec/"big" (i havent spec-ed anyone so no littles over here).