Your letters, but scrambled.

[Psi U MC Vito]

Not scrambled, but similar names.

Sigma Pi and Sigama Phi (Sig Pi and Sig Phi)
Psi Upsilon and Delta Upsilon (Psi U DU)

[Sister Havana]

There's Sigma Alpha Epsilon & Epsilon Sigma Alpha.
Chi Psi and Psi Chi (Psychology honor society)

[pshsx1]

Oh yeah, and I was out with brothers for breakfast once and, of course, some of us were wearing letters. One of the waitresses comes up and asks, "You guys are SigEps, right? Sigma Alpha Epsilon? My boyfriend is one at Whatever University" And she points at someone's letters.

Also I've been asked is SAE is SPE's rival (Nationally) because our names are similar.

[aephi alum]

Originally Posted by pshsx1

Oh yeah, and I was out with brothers for breakfast once and, of course, some of us were wearing letters. One of the waitresses comes up and asks, "You guys are SigEps, right? Sigma Alpha Epsilon? My boyfriend is one at Whatever University" And she points at someone's letters.

Also I've been asked is SAE is SPE's rival (Nationally) because our names are similar.

You think that's bad?

I'm a founder of my AEPhi chapter. AEPi had been on campus for decades. I can't tell you how many times I was asked if I was a girlfriend of an AEPi, or if AEPi had gone coed, etc. You would think that at a top-rated engineering school like MIT, they would know that pi and phi are different letters.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by aephi alum

You would think that at a top-rated engineering school like MIT, they would know that pi and phi are different letters.

Just tell them that Pi is the one in the school cheer.

Randy

[Psi U MC Vito]

My school has two local sororities. Sigma Psi Kappa and Kappa Psi Epsilon. Sigma Psi Kappa was originally going to be Sigma Psi Epsilon but didn't want to be confused with Kappa Psi Epsilon.

[CougarGrad]

Phi Alpha is a national honor society for social work students.

[wolffootball37]

Delta Sigma Phi and Delta Sigma Pi always got me confused.
We also have Phi Kappa Sigma, Pi Kappa Alpha, Phi Kappa Psi on my campus and were getting Phi Kappa Phi this coming semester. Needless to say it will be confusing.

[pshsx1]

Ah and it was rumored (but very untrue) that a local sorority at my school, Chi Omega Rho, was actually a failed Chi Omega colony.

[LAblondeGPhi]

Ok, not exactly the same, but:

Gamma Phi Beta and Pi Beta Phi


Since the Greek letters "Pi" and "Gamma" look kind of similar, people get confused sometimes.

Example: the first couple of weeks of my pledge quarter, I would look at all the Greek merchandise websites and I'd always get tricked by some Pi Phi letters and look at them.
Also, I had a tote bag in college with my letters on it that I wore everywhere. I worked at one of the grad school offices on campus, and one day was stopped by a woman who asked if I was a Pi Phi because she saw my bag. She WAS a Pi Phi in college and still got confused by the letters.

[XAntoftheSkyX]

There's Delta Chi and Chi Delta (local sorority in the California area?)

[tld221]

Total lane swerving, but I suppose the positive of having 9 orgs in your council vs 26 sororities, plus (however many are in the NIC/IFC) is there's not much room for confusing names.

You'd have to try really hard to confuse APA and AKA or ZPB and PBS (well maybe the latter on basis of colors).

But the Latino/MCG orgs, lots of room, as I find many of them use Sigma or Lambda in their names.

Random sidenote: when did naming with 2 letters switch over to 3?

[angels&angles]

Originally Posted by tld221

Random sidenote: when did naming with 2 letters switch over to 3?

I might be the other way 'round; most of the sororities who claim to be the "first," or at least the earliest sororities/societies (Pi Phi, Kappa, Theta, ADPi, etc etc) all have three letters, although many of these had names not related to greek letters to begin with (AD Pi = Adelphean Society, Pi Phi = I. C. Sorosis, etc), so I'm not really sure what version of the letters came first. (Was Theta the first sorority with Greek letters? I seem to remember hearing that somewhere, but not really sure.)

[pshsx1]

Originally Posted by angels&angles

(Was Theta the first sorority with Greek letters? I seem to remember hearing that somewhere, but not really sure.)

According to Wikipedia, according to Baird's lol: In 1867, a society called I. C. Sorosis was founded as a women's fraternity and, while it closely modeled men's fraternities, the membership was not confined to college students. As Chi Theta Delta had disbanded and the Adelphean and Philomathean societies had not yet taken Greek letter names, Kappa Alpha Theta gains distinction for the first Greek letter women's fraternity to be founded with continued existence. It was founded in January 1870 at DePauw University. Kappa Kappa Gamma followed suit when it was established October 1870 at Monmouth College.

[pshsx1]

I don't think there was ever a switchover... I don't think there was ever a trend either...