Origin of the name

Waseda University started life as Tokyo Senmon Gakko (College) on October 21 1882. Before this name was selected, it was also known as “Waseda Gakko” or “Totsuka Gakko”, after the location of the founder's villa in Waseda Village and the school's location in Totsuka Village, respectively.
Around 1892, people started to solely call it 'Waseda Gakko'. It was the renamed “Waseda University” on September 2 1902, upon acquiring official university status.

Origin of our school emblem

In the university‘s early days the students had an emblem,　which they used as their badge, but we do not know its complete origins.
In the university's 20th year, a cap badge was finally chosen together with the university's first school uniform and cap.

However, that badge was round in shape, different from the one currently in use. Four years later, the emblem was brought back, and it became the prototype of the current badge which has the kanji characters “dai gaku", meaning “university", placed over arch-shaped rice leaves (as described in the University Rulebook of that time).
Because various different ribbon shapes, character fonts for “dai gaku” and varying numbers of leaves were being used, we took the opportunity, on the University's one-hundredth anniversary, to standardize the emblem as what you see today.
By the way, did you know that there are 19 ears of rice on each side of the emblem? Some say that this is because 1882, the year the university was founded, is in the 19th century, and the sum of the numbers in "1882" comes to 19. We’re not certain if that is the reason 19 ears were used, but it’s the most popular theory to date.