The origin of the word hippie came after the group of young men called the beatniks moved to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. The beatniks fled commerce in North Beach San Francisco and moved to the Haight-Ashbury area, near the University of San Francisco. The beatniks were admired by the college kids and the kids started calling them hippies. The beatnik group did not call themselves hippies but they developed in a different way. The word hippie spread mainly because the media started using the term and the culture accepted it.