Georgetown Hoyas
The University admits that the precise origin of the term "Hoya" is unknown. At some point before 1893, and likely before 1891, students versed in classical languages combined the Greek "hoia" or "hoya", meaning "what" or "such", and the Latin "saxa" to form "Hoya Saxa!", or "What Rocks!" This cheer may either refer to the stalwart defense of the football team, or to the baseball team, which was nicknamed the "Stonewalls", or to the actual stone wall that surrounds the campus. Father William McFadden, S.J., campus Jesuit and the team's in-house announcer at the Capital One Arena, has disputed the Greek and Latin origin, suggesting the classical words were retroactively applied to a nonsensical cheer.
After World War I, the term "Hoya" was increasingly used on campus, including for the newspaper and the school mascot. In 1920, students began publishing the campus's first sports newspaper under the name "The Hoya", after successfully petitioning the Dean of the College to use it instead of the proposed name, "The Hilltopper". "Hilltoppers" was also a name sometimes used for the sports teams. By the fall of 1928, the newspaper had taken to referring to the sports teams as the Hoyas. This was influenced by a popular half time show at football games, where the mascot, a dog nicknamed "Hoya," would entertain fans.
Hoya Saxa
Hoya Saxa is the official cheer and "college yell" of Georgetown University and its athletics teams. The term "Hoya" is an Ancient Greek word usually transliterated from as "hoia" from the word "hoios" () meaning "such" or "what" as in "what manner of", and is used in certain Biblical quotations. "" is Latin for "rocks" or "small stones". It was used in the name of some Roman settlements, such as Saxa Rubra. Before 1900, students at Georgetown were required to study classical linguistics, and both words are in the neuter plural of their respective languages. The phrase together is generally translated into English as "what rocks!", though other translations have suggested "such rocks!" or "great rocks!" or even "what rocks?" as a question. It was also historically rendered as "Hoya, Hoya, Saxa!", a form that is used in "The Hoya Song" from 1930 which mocked the cheers of other universities, and was then included in the school fight song, "There Goes Old Georgetown".