Roble Hall student staff promote the Roble Rangers dorm theme. (photo by Linda Cicero)

Each year, Stanford’s undergraduate residence halls adopt themes that serve to welcome new and returning students to their campus homes through humor.

Themes, which are most often puns, lend themselves to clever T-shirt designs and entertaining interior dorm decorating.

The themes, created by student residential staff members before the arrival of residents, can be both familiar and obscure. Many allude to popular culture, television shows or movies.

For instance, ARROYO’s “Atroyo” theme harkens to the movie Troy and is, in the words of one student staff member, “mostly about Brad Pitt.”

But BURBANK’s “Burbanksy” theme may be a tad more obscure. It alludes to the work of English graffiti artist Banksy.

Student residential staff in FLORENCE MOORE HALL opted for multiple themes.

On Move-In Day, the west side of the dorm adopted the theme “NickeFlodeon.” T-shirts featured the distinctive orange Nickelodeon logo. The east side student staff members chose East Flomography and designed font-themed T-shirts that were “Typed with Flove.”

To complicate matters, individual houses within FloMo also adopted distinctive themes, including PALOMA’s “Palomulberry Street,” which evokes Dr. Seuss’ first children’s book.

Among the more entertaining themes this year is TWAIN’s “Public Twainsportation.” The dorm’s T-shirt features symbols of a metro system, and each hall has a train-related sub-theme, ranging from the Hogwarts Express to Soul Twain.

Other freshman and transfer dorm themes include:

KIMBALL: KimBatman
SOTO: Sotohana
SERRA: Pirates of the Serrabbean
DONNER: Alice in Donnerland
LARKIN: Sherlarkin Holmes
JUNIPERO: J-Roald Dahl
OKADA: Okadavengers
TRANCOS: Trancolympics
CEDRO: Cedrocket Power
ROBLE: Roble Rangers