If you have ever wondered what do stanford students call themselves, the answer is shorter and more surprising than most people expect. The short answer to what do stanford students call themselves is “Cardinal” — singular, and referring to the colour, not the bird. Stanford’s sports teams are known as the Cardinal, and students, alumni, and supporters commonly describe themselves in the same way, as in “we are Cardinal” or “a Stanford Cardinal”. This guide explains where that unusual name comes from, how it is used in everyday campus life, what the Stanford Tree has to do with it, and why the answer confuses so many visitors and sports fans.
The confusion is understandable. Most universities have a plural animal or warrior mascot: Tigers, Bears, Bulldogs, or Wildcats. Stanford breaks that pattern deliberately, and the break is part of the university’s identity. Understanding the name means understanding a piece of university history, a colour, a tree, and a marching band, and it also means resisting the temptation to invent a neat nickname where none exists. This article sticks to the public, well-documented framing: what the university itself uses, what its teams are called, and how students describe themselves in general terms, without personal details about any individual student.
What Do Stanford Students Call Themselves? The Short Answer
To answer what do stanford students call themselves directly: they call themselves Stanford students, and in a sporting or spirit context, they call themselves Cardinal. The word is used as a collective singular, in the same way that a team might be called “the Cardinal” rather than “the Cardinals”. That grammatical quirk trips up almost everyone at first, because English speakers instinctively pluralise team names. It is also why the question of what do stanford students call themselves keeps being asked: the expected plural animal name simply is not there. Stanford’s own athletics pages and publications consistently use the singular form, and supporters who follow the teams quickly learn to do the same, correcting newcomers gently with a smile rather than a lecture.
It helps to know that “Cardinal” here is a colour: the deep red that, together with white, forms Stanford’s official colours. The university’s teams were not always called the Cardinal. In earlier decades they used other names, including the Indians, a name that was dropped in the early 1970s after objections from Native American students and others, and the university then adopted Cardinal, referring to the colour, as the team name. That history is part of why the name is treated with care on campus today: it was chosen as a colour, not as a character, and it carries no animal or human figure with it. When students say they are Cardinal, they are aligning themselves with a colour and a university, not claiming a mascot identity.
In everyday conversation, of course, most students simply say they go to Stanford or that they are Stanford students. So if you ask what do stanford students call themselves in a dining hall rather than at a game, the plain answer, Stanford student, is the one you are most likely to hear. The Cardinal label appears most often at games, in athletics coverage, in alumni writing, and in spirited contexts such as the week of the annual rivalry game with the University of California, Berkeley. A student might wear a red shirt, paint a sign, or chant with friends, and in that setting “Cardinal” functions as a shared identity. Outside those settings, the plain description — a student at Stanford University in California — is the most common and most accurate way anyone describes themselves.
What Do Stanford Students Call Themselves in Everyday Campus Life?
Campus life adds layers that a simple team name cannot capture. Students identify by their class year, their residence, their field of study, their clubs, and their teams, just as students do at any large university. A first-year student, a senior, a graduate researcher, and a member of a sports team all belong to the same university while belonging to different smaller communities within it. None of these everyday labels replaces “Cardinal”, but they sit alongside it, and they are usually the labels that matter most in daily conversation: where you live, what you study, and what you do outside class.
Traditions also shape how students talk about themselves. Stanford has a long tradition of student-led spirit, pranks, and performances, and its campus culture prizes a mix of academic seriousness and playful irreverence. The most famous symbol of that playful side is the Stanford Tree, the mascot of the university’s marching band, which is a student-designed costume representing a redwood tree, redesigned by a different student each year. The Tree appears at games and events, dances enthusiastically, and is beloved by fans, but it is important to be precise: the Tree is the band’s mascot, not the official mascot of the university or its teams. The university itself has no official animal mascot, which is another reason the “Cardinal” colour name stands alone. Visitors asking what do stanford students call themselves sometimes expect a mascot name as the answer, but at Stanford the colour name is the answer.
That distinction answers a second question many visitors ask, often in the same breath: if the students are Cardinal, why is there a tree? The answer is that the two things come from different traditions. The Cardinal name belongs to the university and its athletics programme, while the Tree belongs to the band, a student organisation with its own history and its own annual selection process for the student who wears the costume. Both are real, both are visible at games, and both are part of what makes Stanford distinctive, but they are not interchangeable. A visitor who calls the Tree the university mascot will be politely corrected, just as a visitor who writes “Cardinals” will be.
The History Behind the Cardinal Name
Stanford University was founded in the late nineteenth century in California, and its early teams used names common to the era. The shift to Cardinal in the 1970s reflected a broader change in American universities, as institutions reconsidered names that depicted Native American peoples. Choosing a colour was a deliberate move toward a neutral identity: a colour cannot be caricatured, it belongs to everyone who wears it, and it connects the teams to the university’s official colours rather than to any figure. The change was not without debate at the time, but the Cardinal name has endured for more than fifty years and is now firmly part of the university’s public identity.
The colour itself, cardinal red, appears everywhere in Stanford’s visual identity, from athletics uniforms to graduation regalia to campus signage. That consistency reinforces the name: when a crowd wears red at a game, the crowd itself becomes the visual expression of “Cardinal”. It is a clever piece of branding, whether or not it was intended as such, because it turns every supporter into part of the identity simply by wearing the colour. Other universities with colour-based names exist, but Stanford’s singular form and its pairing with the Tree make it one of the most discussed examples in American college sports. That is why guides answering what do stanford students call themselves spend so much time on grammar: the singular form is the whole point.
Sports rivalries add another layer. Stanford’s best-known rivalry is with the University of California, Berkeley, and the annual football game between them, known as the Big Game, is one of the oldest rivalries in American college football. In rivalry week, Cardinal identity is at its most visible, with rallies, pranks, and good-natured competition between the two campuses. For students, these events are often the moments when the collective identity feels most real: not a label on a form, but a shared experience of supporting the same team, in the same colour, against a familiar rival. For general background on how universities handle public identity, see our guide to university registrar and administrative identity, which explains how institutions record and present their official details.
Common Mistakes Visitors Make
The most common mistake is pluralising the name to “Cardinals”. The second is calling the Stanford Tree the university mascot, when it is the band’s mascot. The third is assuming Cardinal refers to the bird, which is a reasonable guess, since the bird is also called a cardinal, but it is not the origin of Stanford’s name. A fourth mistake is assuming that students use a secret slang name for themselves that outsiders do not know. There is no widely documented secret self-name: students use the public terms described here, along with ordinary labels such as their class year or residence. Anyone claiming to reveal a hidden student nickname should be treated with scepticism unless a reliable university source confirms it.
| Term | What it means | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Cardinal | The colour red; Stanford’s team name, singular | University, athletics, students, alumni, supporters |
| Stanford student | A person studying at Stanford University | Everyone, in everyday speech |
| Stanford Tree | Mascot of the marching band, a tree costume | The band and its supporters at games and events |
| Cardinals (plural) | A common mistake; not the official name | Visitors and commentators unfamiliar with Stanford |
Frequently Asked Questions About Stanford Students and the Cardinal Name
What do Stanford students call themselves?
The direct answer to what do stanford students call themselves is this: in a sporting or spirit context, they call themselves Cardinal, singular, after the colour. In everyday speech, they most often simply say they are Stanford students.
Is the Stanford Tree the university mascot?
No. The Tree is the mascot of the university’s marching band. Stanford University itself has no official animal mascot, and its teams are called the Cardinal.
Does Cardinal refer to the bird?
No. At Stanford, Cardinal refers to the colour cardinal red, one of the university’s official colours, not to the bird of the same name.
Why is it Cardinal and not Cardinals?
This is the grammar point behind what do stanford students call themselves: because the name refers to a colour, and colours are used in the singular. The university’s own publications consistently use “Cardinal”, and supporters follow that form.
Conclusion
So, what do stanford students call themselves? They call themselves Stanford students, and when they are cheering on a team or expressing university spirit, they call themselves Cardinal: one word, singular, and a colour rather than a creature. The Stanford Tree, beloved as it is, belongs to the band, not to the university as a whole, and the plural “Cardinals” is the mistake to avoid. For a sporting parallel, our guide to sports channels and viewing shows how team identities travel far beyond campus. Remember the colour, respect the singular, and you will sound like someone who knows Stanford rather than someone guessing at it. Next time someone asks what do stanford students call themselves, you can answer with confidence: Cardinal, after the colour, singular, and proudly worn in red.
