The universities in the Ivy League were the first universities in the US. Since at the beginning there were only four, they were called the Ivy League because in Roman Numerals, 4 is IV, where if you say the two letters out loud, it sounds like "Ivy".

First off, that is HORRIBLY wrong. Second, to think of Penn as anything BUT an "original" Ivy would be so........plebian. And finally... The Real History of America's Most Infamous Conference.... While football is where it started, the Ivy League today is nationally recognized for its level of success absent of athletic scholarships while rigorously maintaining its self-imposed high academic standards. The Ivy League has demonstrated a rare willingness and ability, given the current national pressures on intercollegiate success, to abide by these rules and still compete successfully in Division I athletics. The Ivy League crowns champions in 33 sports and continues to sponsor intercollegiate programs of national prominence for women and men. Lacrosse, ice hockey, fencing, soccer, rowing and squash are some of the sports in which the Ivies have been synonymous with national excellence during the league's recent history. On the average, Ivy members boast of 25 varsity teams per campus, well above the national norm. In 1998-99, a total of four Ivy teams and crews were crowned as national champions. Brown's women's crew won the League's only NCAA championship of 1998-99; it was the school's first-ever NCAA crown. The women's ice hockey team at Harvard won the first-ever sanctioned national championship, sponsored by the AWCHA. The women's squash team from Princeton won the national title as did Harvard's lightweight crew. One hundred five Ivy athletes earned All-America status, two were national players of the year in their sports, 17 were national Academic All-Americans, and another four were honored with NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships. The designation Ivy League [is credited to] Caswell Adams of the New York Tribune in 1937. The tag, premature of any formal agreement, was immediately adopted by the press as a foreshadowing of an eastern football league which, at the time, was big news to everyone except the athletic directors involved. For years, the Ivy members already had been allied in leagues in basketball, ice hockey, baseball and swimming. Further common competition was found in the Heptagonal Games Association, which included Army and Navy, in the sports of baseball, track and field, and swimming. Through these other scheduling arrangements, the Ivy athletic directors were used to dealing with each other in matters of administration or the exchange of calculated confidences. As a result of these dealings, and through extensive presidential meetings and discussions, the first Ivy Group Agreement addressing only football was signed in 1945. While the 1945 statement did not address any scheduling issues, it did affirm the observance at the eight institutions of common practices in academic standards, eligibility requirements, and the administration of financial aid for athletes. These tenets are what still bind the Ivies together today and all continue to be based on the desire to secure competition with others having like philosophies. The athletic directors, at the direction of the presidents, were then more formally organized as a committee for cooperative endeavor in the details of athletic administration and a dean from each school was appointed to a committee to exchange information on eligibility and to act for the presidents in cooperation with the athletic directors. In February 1954, what is more commonly accepted as the founding date for the Ivy League, the Ivy Group Agreement was reissued to extend its philosophical jurisdiction to all sports and to foster, insofar as possible, intra-group competition. In layman's terms, that meant a complete round-robin schedule in football, beginning with the 1956 season. Such an agreement assuring seven spots on an eight- to ten-game schedule to Ivy opponents required numerous concessions from each institution and marked a high point in intercollegiate cooperation. The basic intent of the original Ivy agreement was to improve and foster intercollegiate athletics while keeping the emphasis on such competition in harmony with the educational purpose of the institutions. Cheering on Brown's soccer teams; the precision and artistry of Columbia's national powerhouse fencers; the speed and stamina of Cornell's cross country runners; the 17 League football titles won by Dartmouth; an early morning workout on the Charles River for Harvard's crews; basketball games at Pennsylvania's storied Palestra; Princeton's lacrosse teams; the beauty and challenge of the layout at Yale Golf Club. These are just some of the elements that have helped the Ivies foster a wonderful, rare spirit of competition, excellence, and camaraderie for athletes, spectators, and alumni. Located on the campus of Princeton University, the Ivy League (still known officially as the Council of Ivy Group Presidents) continues to grow under the leadership and direction of Executive Director Jeffrey H. Orleans. Since taking the post in 1984, Orleans has become a respected voice on the national scene of intercollegiate athletics. *www.ivyleaguesports.com Obviously you did NOT attend an Ivy institution.

The term "IVy" originated from the fact that there were orginally ony FOUR schools that formed this league. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Brown. In roman numeral terms, the number 4 would be "IV", hence, the term "IVY" league.

The origin of the association between the eight schools now forming the Ivy League lies not in competition on the football field but rather in competition on the water. Long before football existed in its current form, the eight Ivy League schools competed against one another in rowing, which was the nation's premier sport in the late 1800's. (To this day, the Harvard-Yale crew race, begun in 1852, is the oldest rivalry in all of college sports.) The eight schools that officially formed the Ivy League in 1954 did so as a means of reaffirming the ideals of their common athletic heritage, a heritage that was rooted in the sport of rowing. The "IV" that eventually became "Ivy" refers to the four dominant crews at the turn of the century: Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Columbia. At the time, Cornell was such a dominant force in the sport that many schools avoided competing against them. Most notably, Harvard and Yale repeatedly refused Cornell's challenges either to show up at the national championship regatta or to allow Cornell to race in the Harvard-Yale race. The two schools did, however, regularly let the fourth powerhouse crew, Columbia, join their race. Eventually, in 1897, Harvard and Yale succumbed to public pressure and invited Cornell to enter the Harvard-Yale race. Cornell won easily, forever ending any claims of superiority by its more established New England rivals. After their embarrassing defeat in 1897, Harvard and Yale never again allowed another school to enter their race. As a result, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association championship regatta (formed in 1895 by Columbia, Cornell, and Penn) has legitimately crowned the country's national champion ever since, despite the habitual absence of Harvard and Yale. The publicity leading up to the 1897 Harvard-Yale race, followed by years of futile efforts to get the four dominant schools to race again, led to the coining of the phrase "IV League." Also notable is the fact that many crew races in the period consisted of 4-man boats, otherwise known as "IV's” (most collegiate racing occurs in 8-man crews today). Many of the oldest trophies in the athletic heraldry displays at some Ivy League schools mention "IV's Champion" or "IV's League Champion,” though this should not be confused with the true origin of the Ivy League moniker.

They are called "Ivy League" schools simply because they are the oldest founded colleges in the US. The old buildings are covered with ivy. It's that simple. The roman numeral answer is incorrect nonsense and completely made up.

I know it is not the ivy climbing on walls. So, IV sounds good. And my friends that thought that NYU was ivy league, no way. Besides I think it is much after the formation of the ivy league schools. Not sure about the dates though.