California State University, Sacramento is often called avariety of names such as Sac State, or CSUS, but now the school isattempting to end the confusion by finding a common title.

Students, faculty, staff and alumni will havethe opportunity to choose between seven name variations for SacState. The choices are Cal State Sacramento, Capital University,CSU Sacramento, CSUS, Sacramento State (Sac State), SacramentoState University (Sac State), and State Capital University. Thosevoting by paper ballot will be given the option of creating theirown name.

Ann Reed, a spokeswoman for the university,said that staff members from the Public Affairs Office scannedthough literature and newspaper articles to find these commonnames. Fresno State and Sonoma State have both done similarsurveys.

Voting will continue until the end of thesummer. When the fall semester arrives, students registering forclasses will be able to vote on the four most popular choicesgathered during the spring and summer.

The final decision will only change the commonname, of Sac State but the official name of California StateUniversity, Sacramento will remain the same.

“Legally, we will be California StateUniversity, Sacramento … but we can have a formalnickname,” Reed said.

Reed said that President Alexander Gonzalezwould have the final say in regards to a common name for theschool.

She also said that the idea of a new namewould help to end minor confusion and that the issue was originallydiscussed by the president among others.

“When the (Gonzalez) arrived (at SacState) he became very aware that there are a bunch of differentnicknames for this university and it came up several times in townhall meetings,” Reed said.

“Having a lot of different names foranything can be confusing,” Reed said. “There are otherCalifornia State Universities that have gone throughthis.”

Haruko Hasegawa, a student at Sac State, saidthat finding a common name for the university is an importanttask.

“I think it’s a good idea to havea vote,” Hasegawa said.

Hasegawa recommended that CSUS Sacramento beused as a common name.

Other students like John Ritchie said thatdeciding on a name was a waste of time.

“I don’t think it’s reallyan issue,” Ritchie said. “We should concentrate onsomething else. … It’s not a big deal, no one reallycares.”

At the official Web site of the CaliforniaState University, the majority of schools are listed in similarfashion.

The Web site displays Sac State as CSUSacramento. However, a limited number of campuses are titleddifferently from the rest.

Some titles are displayed using the name ofthe school followed by the name of the state. For example,San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose all post their names prior tothe name of the state.

The State Hornet commonly refers to theuniversity on second reference as Sac State. The Sacramento Bee hasused the official title of California State University,Sacramento.

“I always use California StateUniversity, Sacramento in the first reference,” said LesliMaxwell, a reporter who covers higher education for The SacramentoBee.

A ballot is offered online atwww.csus.edu/name/ or students and faculty can vote by using a formfound inside the CSUS Bulletin.